By Ke-Ilah Collins

I had thought,

These walls were for my own protection.

Take hatreds flame, for warmth

she said, she gave-

”let bitterness stay, we dare not let it dwindle down.”

A thought said, ”I am loving myself in the dark, while keeping her nightmares out.”

I believed I could secure my inner realms. Sequester safety from the pillage and company of vile wraiths.

Their throng, their exaggeration of things unliving,

The decay of all too human black teeth, frayed insights!

-Those eyes!

They are unseeing… they gape at me.

An archaic inner voice preaches over a woman’s naked body.

She is more damned than she is alive

More darkness than love;

More like their horde

Than herself.

Delivering betrayal while promising protection.

Its misery, isn’t she?

She keeps her own company.