natural born killer
I walk barefoot through entangled snakes in the desert,
covered in sores that clue snakes
waiting like landmines, diamond backed scales of silk blend together into one, smelling my sickly sweat, my longing for you. Snakes
taunt me with forked tongues, hissing songs of paradise —
oh how rich the blood of their prey, and I remember the blue, snakes
writhe as one around me. I think of your saccharine scent, that holy heroin made just for me, the memory aches. In withdrawal I beg for true snakes
that will lead the way to water, take pity on me as I pick apart cacti with bleeding fingers, searching for their secrets of survival, a few snakes
look at me with hunger, like I am a new-born mourning dove. They lead me to cottonwood trees, remind me of how I should have dug
my nails into your skin, grew roots. Snakes
show me how to constrict. Show me how I should have killed and skinned myself to be worn as a belt around your waist. All too late. New snakes
watch me in wonder. Even they know the stupidity in searching for heaven on earth. This place has no peace, no mercy. You lose everything. Do snakes
know love? How it led me to a fountain of blue bliss, quenched a thirst I never knew I had. How it schemes with the sun, steals the dew from snakes
backs, from the leaves of aloe plants. Teases me with the sky, it’s reflection just like your ultramarine eyes. How it makes me wish to drown. Coo snakes,
hiss me those songs of heaven. In the end, I step on them on purpose. I lie down amongst them, without you — I have no purpose. Venom spews, snakes
invade my veins. They eat at what you left of my insides, my barren heart, the bright bisque hue of the desert burns my sapless eyes. I fade.
A two-headed snake
named Love — glissades up my scorched, scorned body, enters through my right ear and speaks in your voice. Shakes my skull and speaks,
“Georgia. You knew I was a snake.”
© 2023, G.M Stone. All Rights Reserved.
