The Hunt


The walls convulse,
under her thighs, his mouth, their friction.                            
Her hisses hammer the door,                                                
stretches into a crouch.                                              
Her legs quiver with the rush.                                                
She is all copper and scales,                                                  
hair black and thirsty.
It shimmers like the fury of his cheating hands,                    
it chokes him,
drops him to his knees.
Her eyes snake-bright and wild,
springs clean as arrows.
Twirl around his throat.
She plucks heart and liver first,
peels them to bits.
She rules by the ****** of her hips
leaves him empty as lust.
Her rampant thighs jolt,
force him to beg for more
of this succulent venom.
He slings his insides over his shoulder
lets them drip over himself,
he doesn't flinch at the sticky drizzle.
Her stilettos scrape his bones.
She snags the shavings,
they are her trophies
the thrill of the hunt,
proof of her savage prowess.
This medusa-violence,
breaks rooms, love, him,
drapes them down her back
like bed sheets.
She is that myth ,
husbands try their hardest to hide.  
They wash the sheets, flip the bed,
wipe the sweat off the kitchen counter,
take two showers,
and too many deep breaths.
The door snaps shut behind her.
Dad tells me,
he didn’t sleep
with that copperhead.
I nod.

You helped me dump the body in Lake Michigan
We kicked apart ice glued to the wooden boards on the pier
Before unpacking sandwiches in cellophane and styrofoam wrapped cigarettes
And the ***** bloodstained tarp in my trunk
Bitten by moths and stained with the smell of regret and rot
You grabbed the head and I grabbed the legs
We balanced out picnic on the stomach
Walking carefully down the small wooden road into the water
One two and three we threw the body into the lake
It floated but we made sure to stuff it with rocks the size of your fist
With gold and gray gravel in the small spaces in the mouth where the other rocks were too big to fit
The body sank and we ate our sandwiches under the street lamps where we sang songs and kissed the surface of the lake with our toes
You helped me dump that body
And we haven't mentioned it since
You helped me dump that body
And we haven't gone back to the lake since
You helped me dump that body
And it took a few months
To realize you threw mine in the lake too

Your voice was the engine of my car turning over
The noise of the radio cackling Fm stations whispering quickly before disappearing like the moon behind clouds
The driveway of your ex boyfriend's house cold and empty I could see his tire tracks on your neck
Your muscles contracting like car doors slamming shut I could her your mind tick tocking a plan sputtering to life and the wheels setting it in motion
You grab a rock in your hubcap hands kick it threw a window like gravel beneath your training wheel wrists
Twisting and turning and drifting I followed you as your google mapped memory traced a route through his hallways and closed doors
Until you found the framed 2x5 inch photo booth picture reel he kept of you
Noisily you shook it off the wall and we unlocked all his doors
Your high beam brown eyes shouted at me until God struck life back into my car
You threw the picture out on the Veteran's Memorial
Discarded it and the memory like cigarette butts hoping that could remove the cancer too
You crashed that weekend
You sputtered to life briefly
Turning over before dying

You are the monster under my bed
The boogeyman I cannot forget
The black hand red fingernails creeping lightly on my skin like daddy long legs mama told me couldn't bite
Your lips are splinters digging into the holsters you carved into my bones
October 15th I can remember your blackened eyes hollow nostrils like full moons
You were the werewolf mama told me only came out at night to catch bad little boys
I tried so hard to be good for you to be on your nice list mama said you checked it twice
I bit my tongue till it bled while your boogeyman claws paper shredding my thighs blood coming up like well water on your wrists
I didn’t look when the sun came up and you turned back into a man again
I didn’t look under my bed that night because I knew nightmares weren’t what I was afraid of anymore and
night terrors weren’t what was keeping me so late
I didn’t ask mama if I was a bad little boy and if the werewolf was going to be coming back for me again
didn’t ask her to tuck me in
didn’t ask her to read me another bedtime story
Because you are the monster under my bed
And when I don’t cover my feet under blankets like mama said would keep me safe at night you grip me harder than mama could
I can’t forgive myself and I can’t tell myself
mama was wrong that werewolves and boogeymen don’t come for just the bad little boys at night but you let me know
I was the cautionary fairy tale mama let me know I was the boy who cried wolf
you whispered it in your growling hissing nails-on-a-blackboard boogeyman voice
mama never told me what to do if I was that bad little boy
mama never told me how to fight off the boogeyman
never told me ******* a werewolf
If I should run a stake through your heart or
use holy water
mama I'm sorry I didn't know
mama you told me you could forgive me
That October night I prayed while I was falling asleep
Mama said it would help
“Dear god please forgive me
I let the devil inside
And he won’t get out from under my bed.”

Your room is always messy.
Cheerios crowding into the carpet
careful not to be crushed by your drunken feet.
I ask you why you never clean it.
You say this is what college is.

You haven't talked to me in three days.
I lay awake at night picturing you
in your dirtied room,
the clattering windows shades,
the TV you never turn off.

In my head I ask you why
you never clean it.
Maybe if you just moved a pair
of pants you'd find me shadowing underneath.
Maybe you'd know how to talk to me again.

I don't look for an answer.
Instead I watch my windows sway,
wait for you to call,
wait to forgive you.

©DelaneyMiller

The ride from Starbucks was too quiet.
We sit crossed on adjacent couches.
All six feet of him cornering into my couch.
He sweating in his black ninja shirt and jeans
because my house is always 10 degrees too hot for him.
His half-smile retreats behind your tongue.
I am too bright for him in my pink T-shirt.
The couch I lie on barely runs the length of my legs.
My hands fiddle with my blue wristband,
snap it across the room. I lock my fingers together.
The clock coughs loudly with each tick.
He was suppose to be home four hours ago.
The pillows and I lean in. This conversation
starts as a reflection. He wants to know
why people are friends with him. Why I keep
claiming him as my best friend. I admit
it is because I want him to be mine.
He saved me from the black undertow.
Threw me a fishing hook. Reeled me into his boat.
His phone rings. His mom and dad are furious
that he has ignored dinner. Slowly, he drags
himself across my carpet. He wraps his palm
around the door handle. His shoulders roll back-
this has never happened before- he say stiffly,
I've been dating another man for two months now,
I didn't tell you because I didn't want to lose your
friendship. You are the best friend I have ever had.
He slumps through my door,
face too blue and low to say good-bye.
He didn't expect me to cry.
I sit here jarred as we once were.
Trace the tears on the floor.
I can't find it in me to pelt him against my wall
like ******. There is only He is still my best friend.
The whole house shakes with me.
My lungs are jellied.

Winter break my boyfriend and I Drive downtown.
He buys incense
lets me pick out my favorite smell.
Coconut.
We get in the car
he lights a stick and hands it to me.
The smoke flipping over in the air,
rounding like winged bats.

I breathe it in as he turns the car wheel.
Twist the scents
between my fingers,
watch as the air fills with
pipe cleaner smoke.
Wiggling,
Convulsing.

The next week my
Ex-boyfriend decides
he loves me again.
Pulls me over at a party,
beckons me to sit on the stairs.
He tells me he loves me
through drunk tongue
and I watch the wooden panels
begin to twist and curve,
tug at my tattered limbs
until I am sitting.
He pulls my arm towards him,
asks me to love him again,
asks me why I don’t.

I think of the incense
as he pulls me closer,
the delicate flips of smoke,
the moment only a smell can give you.
I breathe in and can taste the coconut,
he pulls me into him,
the coconut smell,
our two bodies,
his lips singing to kiss mine,
but I think of the coconut.
Breathe in,
twist my fingers,
leave.

©DelaneyMiller

On the train track walls
across from my house
there are symmetrical black letters.
Evolve Today.
I don’t know what to feel
when I see them.
Don’t know if I should admire
the way they suckle to the wall
like papered monarchs.
Watch as my hands flutter
at each letter.
I wish I could be like him.

I picture him cutting each letter
with an exacto knife.
Drawing every line and crevice,
Evolve Today.
Smiling at his new art like
it means something different.
Each time I see the letters
I stare at the wall,
picture his hooded head,
his butterfly hands
they are steady as he paints.

My hands are always shaking.
On Friday he parks the car in an alley.
Hoods his head,
grabs a can of spray paint.
Evolve Today.
I look down and notice
how my leg is convulsing,
watch as he dances across pavement
coats a dumpster in his art.
My head is turning,
twitching up and down
like spray paint.
I cannot help but think of the consequences.

He gets in the car
tells me it feels good.
I look at the winged paint
on his hands.
Evolve Today.
All I see is evidence.
I sit there wishing I could
hold a can of paint and keep steady.
I sit there wishing that my legs
would stop twitching,
my arms would stop shaking,
my mind would stop cocooning,
that for once I could butterfly like him.

On Monday I go back to school.
Sit in class and think
of his hooded head,
his spread arms,
his steady letters.
I grab a pen out of my bag,
Evolve Today.
Half of a butterfly
papered to the desk.


©DelaneyMiller

My family built
our house out of dad’s downstairs recording studio.
The couch where mama rubs my head.
The wooden dining room table,
where we play Cards Against Humanity.
This is love to me.

I think of these things when there are differences in our house.
When we fill each wall and crevice
with angry door slamming,
grabbed shirts,
words that split ears
like singed rocks.

Sophomore year I brought
home my first boyfriend.
I told mama we were in love.
We sat at the table,
played board games with my family.
He was quick to help my brother
with the rules,
quick to help mama clean up the dishes.
He memorized the way our paint chipped,
the way we built our home.
I watched as he brushed his hands
over our dining room table.
Thought he fixed the *****
crevices in our walls.

7 months later we are driving home from a date.
I let him squeeze my thigh.
Smiled even though it hurt.
I agreed to let him pull over.
Push me against the car window.
I smiled as he fish hooked my hands
to the roof of the car.

I didn’t  tell him
that my neck was craning.
That I wanted to go home.
I didn’t resist as he pushed.
Kept smiling as his kisses got rougher.

All this time I had been pretending
that what he was doing was okay,
that his love was my family’s piano,
the black bricked fireplace,
not the door slamming in my bedroom
not the dining room table,
not the way he sat at it
and never wanted to leave.  
I never thought it would be fair to want him to leave.

Driving home that night I was lucky.
I know I wasn’t *****
but when he squeezed my thigh I didn’t say no.
Didn’t scream like I wanted to,
didn’t kick like I should have.
Didn’t know how to leave someone
who was already built into my home.

I should have known.
No matter how much he fit into
the walls of our home,
he would never play
the piano like my dad,
never rub my head like my mom.
He would never be family.
Never know how to watch paint chip,
and let it become part of a home.
He would only surround me with walls
and watch as they sunk into the floor like love.
Where do you go when you are no longer safe inside your own walls?

©DelaneyMiller

Your face is grainy
over computer screens.
I can hear the girls
in the next room.
Their voices rattling
like lost hub caps on the highway.

You say you miss me.
Ask how the high school
is holding on without you.
If I’ve lost it yet.

Its only the second week
and I want to tell you
how I still look for you in the halls,
mope like the crevice
of half a moon lacking light.

I know its light where you are.
College parties suckling
your childhood like catfish,
till the high school on your skin is mouthed clean.
Till you forget.

How long will it be before
the catfish come for me?
Before my face is too grainy
for you to remember?
Before the moon turns black.



©DelaneyMiller