Will you ever speak again?
Did a mouse steal your tongue?
Am I the cat dragging it back with an allusion to love
for the one who keeps her?
You never entertain me with your stories.
I never leave your crystal balls alone:
knock them about and keep them
hidden from you.

But I slaughtered that mouse.
Didn’t I kill for you?
Isn’t trial love?
A more violent truth serum
I offer than most; I rip answers
with my sudden eruption of flames
directed your way
but I leave some blue vervain
on the dresser to soothe you,
mention it’s good for clarity and
joint pain.
No burn salve, something
slightly bitter.
A final act of cruelty
and I bow in my miniskirt.

You chose solution in someone else,
and the lie.
I chose to withhold an antidote to your
meek eternity.
Had I said “I love you despite what you’ve done to me “
I know you would have stayed.

But vengeance tastes sweeter
than pride as you’ll soon
see. The way I devour,
the way I spit you back up.
The  way I make you
taste yourself.
It’s titled
“Lilian”
and
“the way I make you
face yourself”
or

“How I write you in the story”