Red Moon

 What do you know about rolling in the deep? 

Masked Astronaut

I'm hoping that now that I have unlocked this anger

That has wrapped its serpentine and lithe essence 

Around the fist that is my heart, it's damp and musky lair

With the tail rattling at the very thought of your name 

My tongue has become forked with the tangled lies

Growing from the roof of my mouth, pointy stalactites

Of great lengths vining their way towards a soft tongue

Recoiling into a swallow and a blocked passageway 

Torturing my taste buds with the threat of piercing 

A confession: I have half-truths stuck between my teeth

Making onlookers uncomfortable when I smile  

The two Ivorian incisors as pillars keeping reality shelved

My splitting spitting tongue red with smouldering rage 

A flare of nostrils when my betraying brain airs the carpet

And memories of you rise in the beam of the light 

Suspended brilliantly before remembering their weight

With a thud, they land on the floor of my psychology

Like the elephant in the room felled by a poacher 

Lifeless, on its side, I cover it with the clean rug

Wondering what Exupery's children would draw now

The slackening anger unfurls its fingers on my vitals

And its heat rises painting walls and windows copper red

Bloodshot eyes; as the sleep I've missed goes on a bender

Waterboarding my soul, being questioned but it doesn't talk

I've lain awake keeping the sun from setting on your name

A vigil of love, I still pray for you, and your dreams 

The blood churns and breaches strongholds and progress

All seven steps of grief are rearranged like a Picasso

Square one is a puddle of emotion, a Rorschach inkblot

Losing its edges but retaining its sharpness, a test 

But my emotions have forgotten their names, I fail

In the heterogeneity of melee, the red is freshly dyed 

This is anger's last gasp numbing my arms in pain

Does this anger not yet know who I am? It has failed

Undulating my body within my phone's range of hearing

I fish for the words with my teeth tossing them into a text

Alexa! And my digital companion delivers on its promises

The screen brightens, you always respond to a text with a call

I cough out bloody phlegm on my sheets, sthandwa sam' you say

I sob and the red moon once again adorns the shade of its summer