Her thoughts took a dark turn
like jackals in the threadbare sun
ripping, ripping until she couldn’t see
herself, now a carcass of once-sought dreams;
a bone-hollow skeleton
stripped of all marrow by which future is made,
where the ink dried within.

Blood, first red then black, gathered in pools
around her head
until the ears spilled no more.
She’d done it to drown out the howling—
for who can bear the noise
of a broken heart?

The muting of syndicate
mocking and whimpering replete,
she worked the metallic taste of hate off her tongue.
It lingered though and became bitter
so she used her teeth to bite into its flesh
for nothing other than to taste a mellowing of salt.

A waft of perfume lingered in the cloying rot,
the remnant of her identity laying in the dust
while the air spilled with the scent of her decay;
a lone paper, yellowed and curled at the corners,
rattled in a wisp of wind.

A cloud began to form on the horizon,
a growing mist of dry, kicked-up earth,
swirling and choking the throat of tortuous barbs.
The cyclonic reclamation filled the desert of scars and loneliness,
returned sinew and marrow, blood and ink
to the supine form of the battered giant
of a dream so big the rabid enemy of her soul
was lost for strategy to bring down.
  

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11