apparently
it does not suffice
to tuck yourself
away
in a suitcase
(and get your hair caught in the zipper and
chafe your skin against the leather and squeeze
your toes between
the socks and ugly underwear, and block
your ears, so they don’t hear
the sharp, clear sound of the locks as they
close, with finality,
no,)
you have
to carry it
too.
They never mean what they say,
wrap all things in false ideas of politeness
and manners,
hiding secrets and words in the crease of
their elbows and the sinister gleam of their eyes.
Everything distorts and bends
in their mouths, like dark caverns and
grottoes, where you trudge and twist and turn,
confounded by the brightness of their
glass-like walls, as treacherous as they are
beautiful.
Talking, discussing, is an exercise in code-breaking and
reading between the lines.
It’s a full novel in a foreign language to be deciphered in
subterranean chambers with inaccurate
dictionaries.
Smiles (beware of smiles) never mean happiness,
but you find yourself mesmerized
by the dull yellow glow of their once gleaming enamels.
(You see: broken teeth, chapped lips, sneers and wet skin,
sloppy tongues, blood-like red and the visible quiver of an expecting
jaw, all ready to swallow you, you and your uncorrupted
grin, and the lingering taste of strawberries picked under
a summer sky)
It is a maze, the caverns of their teeth, and you are the prey.
They, the Minotaur ready to eat you, digest you with
a lick of their tongue, a snap of their lips and
an unwanted
kiss.
