Addendum

So baby Grady was "helping" me clean off a book shelf - he basically just threw everything on the floor in his helpful baby way - and in the clean-up I discovered an old folder from college. Within the folder was - ta da! - the poem I was referring to in my second-to-last post that horrified classmates in my poetry seminar class. I thought I'd like to share it with you here.

Please note that that this poem was written 10-11 years ago, and I currently enjoy a much closer relationship to my then-husband than I did previously. He has graciously given his nod of approval to the publication of said-poem, realizing that he was my inspiration but I mean him no ill-will.

Also, Matthew was relating a story to me in which he was reading my blog at work *ahem* and a co-worker read my poem over his shoulder and said, "Oh my, I don't think I could ever even write words like that." And that is my point. I have a certain audience. You may not be in it. But I write for the people who cannot say these things aloud. I write for the people who want to say "fuck you" but can't. There are so many people who are so nice they don't speak their mind. I am not one of them. So these poems are for them.

Here is my poem. Mahalo for listening.

Hellraiser

It's 3 a.m. and I'm staring at him
naked and fragile and
with the comforter stripped away
looking like a small, killed thing.
He is dreaming of someplace better
where kinder women live and frolic.
He is kicking his leg like a tired old dog.
I
I am waiting to gut him
slice him
hurt him
with my Cenobite grapple hook finger nails
if he rolls the wrong way
or snores.

I am the woman
he says
who can skin a man with words,
invasively inhabit a mind
better than Pin Head.
My mind
he says
is the puzzle box
and even though there's no easy solution
to find the last button
is so irresistible
that he'll surely die trying.
Loving em is sudden death,
or perhaps eternity as
CD head.

It delights something naughty
inside me
to feel his futile struggling
even in dreams
to grasp who I am.
I sense the onset
of his soul departing
even as he sleeps.
My icy hook nails
scritch-scratch his throat
and cloying death scent
blooms from his open mouth.

I think someday soon
I'll know what it's like
to miss him.
Maybe I should have been
better.
Maybe tomorrow,
I'll sprout a heart.