She swoops,
the talons of her barbed words
sinking like weights
through his delicate porcelain skin.

Snarling,
baring the oh-so-sparkling canines
usually reserved for tearing flesh
from bone,
she persists in stopping
his
ironic descent into manhood in its tracks.

What shall she do
when met with a crossroads?
A strange thought for one taught to give up.

Her rampage ends abruptly
a torrent of sweeping water that
renews trodden patches of
disturbed sand,
she embraces him, her son
and through rasping tears, begs for him to smile.

Tentatively,
he twitches
the corners
of his chapped lips
upwards,
praying, hoping, wishing
he has what it takes to pacify her.

Pressing her salty-as-the-sea
cherubed cheeks against his,
(inheritance is a beautiful thing)
the melted particles
of what once belonged to
her
browning
orbs sink into the grooves of his
laboured smile.

She hoarsely whispers,"Bigger my boy, I need to see".
A sick delusion
Was harboured.

Searching her son's
swimming eyes
she pulls at her ragged robes.
He can't do it.
They both know it
despite the pearly,
reflective teeth that lay whimpering within the cavern of his mouth.
They were of course, fabricated moulds of
pent up, angry, volatile chemicals,
a circus of reactions and catalytic encounters.

He doesn't want this madness.