They battered at their cages
But their cages stayed tight shut
And they wanted higher wages
But their salaries got cut
So they lied and fought like rodents
Rodents trapped within a cage
They'd be free if they'd been prudent
And concealed their inner rage.

paint on your
plastic smile
with a brush with
hair like knives

shake off your
crumpled skin
like you're shedding
your disguise

sketch in the
broken lines
with a barbed-wire
blue-ink pen

then frame the
shattered soul
you're hoping to
paint again.

Watch out, ******
Your humanity
is showing.

The woman holds a letter
crumpled and crumbling at the tip like insanity taking its first few licks at calm
and liking it
brushing black-inked words beneath her fingers
like she's contemplating some black haired deed
like anger
or hate
or ******
and maybe she is.

The woman lifts her hands unto the skies
crying for help from a darkness that won't help her at all
but she wants it
banishing her innocence and taking up home
in the old, abandoned shack of spite and malice
wanting blood
wanting love
wanting power
but not just for her.

The woman meets her husband
taunting and teasing and twisting his words into a sadistic mockery of what they were
and he believes her
with a slap across morality he agrees with her
takes her outstretched hand to show that
jealousy is married
determination binds
it was his idea first
and weakness is sin.

The woman turns and faints
blanching so white it's like the evil wasn't ever there
it's hiding
waiting, longing to consume her whole
she'd thought she'd washed away the deed
with just
a little
spot of
water.

The woman enters the banquet hall
hanging off her husband's arm like the weight of the crime that holds her down
she's shaking
trying to hurl off all the lonely isolation
as her husband lo and talks to ghosts
and kills
not just
men but
her as well.

The woman walks and talks asleep
scratches skin and tries to scrub away the sticking-plaster guilt
but still it stays
forces of darkness she invited
staying long past their welcome and
not just
eating all
the food
but her as well.

The woman recognises blood
splattering the deceased's names across her arms in swirling crimson lines like marker pen
that won't wash off
maybe she'd be better off dead than praying
wishing she could drown her err
in just
a little
spot of
water.