Afternoon

I sit in the lukewarm water

While the clouds indulge in a siesta

And the sun bakes the backs of toddlers

As their starched dresses and ties

Mingle with the playground’s grime

I rip my pearls

That choke my lungs

Wanting out from the glitter and gloss

To be the lamb once pure

For I strayed away from the herd

And wrote a new manifesto undeterred

I drink my salty tears

When he is not here

And can’t bruise my locked door

His cologne can no longer disguise

His blemish that eats inside

I rinse my scars with citrus

When my body aches severed ties

A monarch rules my peasant skin

She holds a gun point blank

No longer at my face but at her grave

Now I wail in woe

Every friend and foe creases my curtains

I bathe my body till it decays its desire

To be stuck forever in this no man’s land

Let me be drowned and damned.