Day 16: Rattlesnakes

I don't know that I really want to post this poem. It feels...I don't know.  It feels like a lot of things.

This stupid every day poem thing...I'm very cross with this deal I made with myself right now.  Very, very cross.

I kinda feel like this poem needs a trigger warning.  I don't know that it really actually does, but maybe....so I'll just leave that here.  Possible trigger warning sound fair?

Day 16.

(Also, as cross as I am, I've written 16 poems.  That's a lot of poems, really.  Especially for 16 days!)

Rattlesnakes

Perhaps it was drowned out by the hissing.

Perhaps the rattling tail was too loud

he couldn't hear me

with his lethal charm

he slid down and around and in

smiled when I said it

hissed all the more loudly so my no

was nothing more than a cricket with one wing

chirping in a field

of rattlesnakes.

Last Sunday

when you asked if you could give him my number

my answer was drowned out by  your hissing.

Your tail rattled before you had even finished the question

your lethal charm and authority,

just by your very presence,

takes my wing and breaks it

silencing my chirping.

When I say no and you ignore me,

it puts me in my body so I no longer want to live there.

I search every limb, every organ, every cell

for a trap door

an elevator

a hidden stair case

I search for the hammer to break the glass

to sound the alarm

but it only ever shatters inward,

silently.

When I say no

and you ignore me

I am plunged into the pool and -

while it may be safe -

I'll never know:

all I can hear

is the hissing.