Devil Slay
She tries to make the couch corner
her haven.
Make her six-year-old form congeal
with upholstery –
camouflage,
disappear.
But the laws of physics can’t be bent;
and He will not allow her the luxury
of illusion.
The world is round.
Time is a bouncing rubber ball;
if we wait
we are bound to rebound
to what we’ve lived before.
A She made me want to be upholstery.
I try to remember how I slayed her,
realized I just ran.
I watch Him now,
wonder
if we could run far enough.
I don’t know how
to slay a devil.
He bends over her.
Veins distort his flesh,
transform loved to grotesque.
The air quakes with ominous shouts
as he sucks in air,
pukes back sledge hammers
that pummel her tender flesh.
How could you do this again?
Why are you always so bad?
She cowers,
but his aim is better than Robin Hood’s.
Each word pierces the bull’s-eye
anger has drawn on her skin.
Her thoughts echo against my memory-stones…
a crashing crescendo that tries to
splinter skull bones
and erase twenty years of time.
I must stop this before
her vein-coated heart is rigid with scars.
I must stop this before…
I must stop this.
His voice beats harder.
Demands answers.
Tosses them aside as lies.
But will not allow silence.
The sun beats through the front window.
A rainbow of hope prisms into the room.
False hope that this might end
without my intervention.
I wonder how that window will feel
when the devil sends me flying through it.
Fear really can turn muscle to stone.
His rage balloons threats
to Gulliver-proportions,
that spear her eyes with the doubt
they just might be true.
His hand is
three times the size of hers.
She is Thumbellina.
He is Goliath.
Guilt pounds her deeper into the cushions…
But the cushions betray her;
refuse to open up,
deny her sanctuary.
Sanctuaries are made, not given.
Shame flows like lava,
melting immovable muscles.
I put myself between him and her
silently.
My defiance against his wrath.
It incites blazes in his eyes.
Incredulous
I would dare take on a Devil.
I prayed tonight
with every drop of faith left in me.
Prayed he would raise his talons,
swipe my cheek,
leave just ONE visible scar –
the only act I know
where the price of penance is too high.
Irreversible choices made
in the flash of fist.
His claws draw back.
My chin inches higher…
He reaches around me,
tongue lapping her face.
Her tears, his ambrosia.
Drunk with the power of creating
such a sweet vintage,
he grabs the cushion she sits on,
pulls like a magician pulls a tablecloth…
not wasting a drop of champagne.
She sits like a stone goblet,
makes no attempt to deflect
potential physical blows.
The slamming of the door behind him
reverberates the warning:
this game is not yet done.
He-Devils are as clever as She-Devils.
Next time,
there will be no indecision.
Next time,
I will grab this He-Devil by the horns,
exorcise him from existence.
Next time…
Her tears have not stopped,
still desperate to transform
into upholstery.
The couch shudders as if in an earthquake,
echoing the shock waves she emits
as she cowers from my caress.
Her faith in sanctuary
still lies in furniture.
Time is a bouncing rubber ball.
“Next time” is the procrastinator’s motto.
Sanctuary is made, not given…
But fear really can turn muscle to stone.
And I do not know how
to slay a devil.
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I started studying writing and poetry at The Cincinnati School for Creative
and Performing Arts at the age of 12. Now, I am a happily married mother of two girls living in Northwest Ohio who works for a physician's network. My poetry has appeared in about 43 print/web zines, and I've performed at
several places around Toledo over the last several years. I am a member of the rock/spoken word band Logic Alley (www.logicalley.com), and Director of Minstrel Soup Artist’s Coalition.
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