a body of my own

for most of my life i thought that my body was my own.

my body was my flesh and my blood,

Persephone’s temptation,

a pomegranate path to freedom.

it was my skin and my bone,

with eyes, ears, and a mouth that took in a million breaths

of fresh, sharp, glittering air.

i walked the world as if i owned it,

in the ecstasy of an endlessly blooming field of honeybees and lavender.

i owed the world nothing.

so i lived.

then you came.

taking away my pomegranate seed throne,

leaving me in the hidden abyss of night

with the toxins in your devastatingly sweet,

deceivingly sleepy poppy seed and poison ivy touches.

you didn’t know about the nightmares that came afterwards,

right?

you gave me a lover’s gentle touch,

with the bite of a hissing, delusional

black-lightning adder.

and when you placed your hand on my back and my knee,

my body and my entire being,

was mummified.

my brain hooked out of my nose,

liver and lungs removed,

with precision.

the sacred bubble that had been taught to me since i was a child,

created and popped with a single breath.

all i did was stand still while

you, the adder,

nipped at my heels.