sometimes I can't pretend
(with fraudulent smile
and counterfeit jollity)
expelling misery caked carbon dioxide
grappling with fresh clean oxygen
looping it around happy happy speak
to bluff-tumble all around
sometimes I can't pretend
as her falsehoods
assault my crumbling walls
as conspiracy theories replace responsibility
as accusations curl around lunatic lies -
today I am a victim of her inconsistency
tomorrow her absent shrug will not heal me.
sometimes I can't pretend
(though the knife feels blunt
and her nails are clipped)
that my best foot is alive and well
you may see me walk is if I were living
expansively naming my blood-warmed jewels
writing false futures with a dried-up pen
sometimes I can't pretend
when softly she steps
with white feather wings
when she strokes my brow and bestows stolen gifts
and tries to suggest that the demon is dead
while robbing my soul to sharpen her rage
to cut me open when I'm lulled to sleep
sometimes I can't pretend
as the demon expands
biting chunks from my mind
as giggle-groans echo beneath my ribs
and with stained talons she crawls a smidgen deeper
sometimes I can't pretend
that she is not burrowing back inside the womb
where I lovingly formed her so long ago
(daily she wept at her exile
from that moist-hugged cave within me)
© Jane Paterson Basil
Making it write 