poem: This Is She by Lauren Hurrell

I am the crease in the stiff linen that cocoons you in sultry nightmares:

Push me down and I'll  retaliate against your will

Into my former shape, but pinch and claw at me until you bleed

Into every thread that frays, and my finest shreds

Will become trapped beneath your fingernail.

I can take you back to a time

When those fingernails traced my curves in a violet hour

You marked me with obsessive waning scratches,

Lulling us into stern hunger. Devour me.

A latch clicked. You raised me to your parted lips

And we tangled ourselves into the night.

What went wrong was your burning haste,

Triggered by the thickening sky and thrashing clocks

Caged within ribs. You toyed us into a frenzy,

Caressing me ‘til you had draped these shoulders

In crescent moon wounds, beaded red. Mortal.

Our perpetual sunrise slipped like a dropped coin.

Close your eyes. Touch me. Imagine these moons turned silver

And this home where no pulse haunts.

I am a pill on the tip
of your tongue, balancing

in the echoes of Mercutio’s resonant scream:

This is she!

Let me plunge into that eternal night

And we will be bounded - yet boundless.
Don’t you miss it?

Open your eyes and swallow me whole,
For Satan will welcome us like Queens.  

- l.v. hurrell