She wants to be bathed in starlight and kissed with dew
Glimmering with a seductive shimmer,
Glowing,
Phosphorescent, incandescent, no opposing value
One in a flock of northern lights
Setting out as ships into the night to seek a harbor worth their youth
To dazzle, dance, and be gone
Transcendental transitory truth to dawn
And once in place
Putting on a brave face as she navigates the pulsing dark
Bass beat replacing her heartbeat as she pushes through
Until eyes are met and all he sees is
you you you
Drink offered drink accepted
Contract signed
She has an idea of what he’s divined
Declined
She turns away
Only to find
He is the wall
meeting the wall
meeting the wall
And she can’t
recall
where her friends have strayed
Can he really not sense the decay?
Molded so carefully into pressed powder
And pursed lips
Tip-toeing through the two
Scripts
One where she speaks her mind and truth
The second playing amiable just to get through
Moving through conversations where opinions are
the car keys held between knuckles in a hidden fist
A mental list of transgressions being
Tick tick ticked
off
You can’t be rid of someone so sure
That they are the person
unto which lines gladly blur
It’s unfair
How armed to the teeth we have to be
When the warning signs are flashing and you know
He’s not going to let you go peacefully
When the olive branch is a series of digits
Or an invitation- your place or mine?
But car keys are too heavy for a dove to carry
Her mind races to the last they had to bury
Because no wasn’t an answer
Set out as a star
And now she’s not so sure
Casting a text as an S.O.S.
Hoping Ariadne will bless
her with a thread
Lead us all out of the maze of internalized obligations
Racing down each path to see which will be the Dead End
Avoiding supplication
Oracle of Wifi
Who will she send?
And lo
Luminous figures pass through the lights, clasping hands,
Clutching at the hems and strands that will lead her home
The beast bellows daggers
As they single-file catwalk style towards the door
you you you
whore
The thread extends so far out
Past the guards at the gate,
Into the late night under the spotlight
Of parking lot lamps
She’s never been so thankful for florescence
Crisis avoided as the revels of Dionysus are abandoned
Adding to the tapestry woven so tightly by so many who have come before her
She grows weary of this pattern
of saturnalias laced with fear and fervor
just wishing that once
just once
that no could be the answer.
Devon Cozad earned her MA in English Literature at Buffalo State College. She currently teaches College Writing and Communications courses across several campuses in Western New York, and also works with community garden and literacy programs. Her work has appeared with In Layman’s Terms, Meow Meow Pow Pow, and Scene & Heard.