Virgin In Her 20's

There is a woman out there believing in the intentionality of landscapes

Waiting for the maestros in the dirt to play their tunes.

You’ve never been truly at peace, she thinks,

Until you’ve let the crickets comfort you.

In the syrupy light pouring through the window on the southeast side

Of the house, she finds a faint smile.

Smears it like a shadow across her walled lips.

She reaches out for her oversized mug of blueberry tea

With one hand.

Coaxes her hair behind her ear with the other.

Legs pinned beneath much like a cricket herself.

Then she catches it.

The sight of a doe in panic in the thicket behind her house.

Running, bursting, and lost with grief.

The rise and fall of her animal heart palpable through glass.

Something in the woman shatters.

She turns from the window.

Stoic behind her glasses like a mature sea calm inside its shores

But her thoughts : a salon of Gorgons

Where the vipers curl to the floor and hiss his name.

Itsssss him. I’m hisss. Shhhhhh.

She sits stirring her tea, calculating her poison

Dreaming of his face, his face like a shield

The moment they both knew who she was.

When he took her head

With everything in it.

She sips and sighs

And thinks

Women should not be forced to grow snakes out of crowns.

To fashion their dreads like vines

Meant for collecting and storing and strangling.

So many things we are forced to do and to be.

Some mornings she’s too tired to speak.

In her sleep the night before, her gums disintegrated in her mouth

Left a plate full of mashed diamonds for teeth.

She’d swallow her pride and call

If it wouldn’t cost so much.

The doe crashes in the thicket and doesn’t get up.

Eyelashes beat the tears from her eyes

Like sand from closed toed shoes.

She remembers the beach and the shells

And the blood ringing in her ears

And how she wasn’t reminded of waves after all.