-----------------

Gaping through hollow eyes
sockets deep. Body as gaunt
as any refugee.
The jutty ribs you can count
like veins in a tree's leaf.

Wretched pain, a tooth pulled
with no anesthesia. The poison falling out of
her head, down an uninspired cheek.
Malaise brings a familiar comfort,
she can feel something.
Though she's dying and the world sees her captor.
She's condemned by him, her character discarded.

Lost and forsaken, replaced.
Punished for imagined crimes.
Dislocated like an emigree.
Feeling inadequate as usual,
"that warden! Who is he?"
Would she live to tell the tale?

His intentions just before her untold,
though vivid, answered by piercing dream screams.
Empty and starved for forgiveness,
with no absolution in sight.
Denial. She has to eat.

This puppeteer had stumbled across her twine
saying, "I'll save you, mold you and feed you leaves.
You'll do as I say; you'll owe me your life."
She mimicked his ways, adapted to eat,
but the leaves were desiccated and weak.
She was choking and gasping
as his dutiful wife.

Thoughts of suicide danced on her brain.
There has to be a way to end this pain.
She looked in the mirror
and wasn't sure who she was.
A disillusioned face looked back,
as gray as a dove.
"Excuse me Madam have we met?"

Conclusion...

With liberty and nourishment in mind, she
made her plan of escape, tossed all caution aside.
She peered into her keeper's deceiving eyes. Yes, she
turned and spun on her heels, without a good-bye.
While in the market one day,
a man with a cart full of acquittal brushed
alongside her... So patient and loving,
he satiates her hunger.
She's fat and sassy now,
Her Knight had taught her to eat.

© Janet Caldwell 2002-2004