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In Đà Nẵng my friends cradled me like a child.
We screamed Taylor bridges,
tequila-toasted in bars until the lights blurred.
A single candle in the bathroom
danced warm sighs through open windows,
and all felt calm.

I grew new muscles balancing on a motorcycle,
sometimes gripping Harry’s jacket,
sometimes throwing my weight into the wind.
The city flared neon and gasoline in stuttered traffic,
but along the coast
he drove so fast the vibrations in my chest harmonized.
I pictured my bones becoming butterflies if I let go.

Last year I entered the year of the dragon on a futon,
swayed to sleep by a hundred chanting voices from the temple next door
while Bailey burned incense for her ancestors below.
I did not dream of dragons.
I only learned to breathe fire.

The year of the snake slid in with new bones and old habits.
It hissed that suffering could be scripture
until letters slithered free from the page
and coiled like cold jewelry around my wrist.

That was the shedding.
Salt water peeling old skin away,
songs shouted so loud they drowned the ache,
poems that did not start tragic,
nights when my body finally kept time with the moon.

Then at home the dog’s teeth found my hope.
A terrified mouth rerouted rivers
through my soft parts.
A jewel carved from my nose.
Six punctures blooming across my arms like altars.

In Vietnamese stories the snake waits beneath the water
to claim whoever dares the bank.
I wonder if I was chosen the moment
I opened my mouth in those bars,
when I leaned into the bike’s curve
as if danger could be a love song.

Now I lie awake at hours unnamed,
tracing scars that hiss answers back.
Vietnam hums inside me still,
the candle, the coast, the chorus of friends,
but I cannot tell if they are memories
or if the snake is still awake inside me.

They say snakes shed to grow,
but no one warns you how thin the new skin feels,
how everything burns against it,
how you mistake survival for prophecy.

I touch the scar and wonder
if I am still that girl clinging to the bike,
or if the snake has already swallowed me,
patient, sleepless,
feeding on my own venom.
james Jul 27
clock toils its time—it's time for life,
life's most perilous grand journey.

the snake tightens its grip around his neck,
as he surfaces from bathtub's shallow water,
for it's not drowning that is his demise,
no—it's air's extinction.

the snake coils itself around his head, like a crown,
gifting him sleepless nights, full of waking man's nightmares:
the bottle's shards in the heart,
rejection's painful strikes deep in his mind.

his end begins with lack of every thing imaginable:
energy, strength, desire, happiness, hope, love.
like a ghost living amidst us, a mere shell of what is left of him.
day and night—a struggle—as his will leaves him bit by bit.

amidst the pendulum stands snake's poison—
so elusive and so dear.
it's incredible how much he chases the high,
finding solace in its terrible embrace.

his beginning ends with persecution.
endless stories told by hidden messages.
madness unfolded, spread and laid out like a path,
that he takes as soon as no-one's in sight.

and what is left of life's time?
gone, gone are the stars.
Lee Jul 21
Walk home,
Trot home
No moonlight around the sky
Laces come loose
Balance you lose
lean on the rock wall to tie

Hold up the flashlight
Hold up your head
See there’s a snake leaning on your thumb
Shriek, scare the creature
Dads laugh, beware the creature
But now snakes make your heart thrum
Written about the first time I ever met a snake in an unexpected situation, before I befriended them. I was walking back from my aunts camper when I leaned on the wall to tie my shoe, after I felt something I put my small flashlight on it to see a garter snake. The handsome fella was leaning on my thumb, but I was startled, heart POUNDING. Nowadays Herpetology (The study of reptiles and amphibians) is a huge passion of mine - Lee
Zywa Apr 24
Is the snake rustling

behind me, that lay sleeping --


between the pine cones?
Poem "Beweging" - 1 ("Movement" - 1, 1992, Maria van Daalen)

Collection "Unseen"
It was silk that was choked on,
It was wind which was blowing.
For the fly never is caught
Until the act of consumption!
Yet, if by consumption,
Is the spider itself conditioned?
What few arachnids shall spin no web,
Like few snakes whom have no venom.
Defanged or deglanded,
I suppose only fools make distinction
Between either of them.
Yet, if by the action,
Is the hand itself also conditioned?
Medusa (noun)
Sometimes the Greek myth gorgon monster, most of the time, I am—
Misunderstood. Unheard. A story twisted by trembling tongues.

They paint me a monster because it’s easier—easier than admitting what they did. Easier than facing the truth: I was not always this.

Once, I was soft—a girl with warmth in her hands and light in her eyes. But the world does not spare the soft. They touched without asking. Took without permission. And when I refused to break, they called me wicked.

I became what they feared. Not by choice—by survival.

Now, I wear my venom like a crown. I speak, and they call it defiance. I exist, and they call it danger.

But still, they watch. Still, they want. Still, they tremble beneath the weight of me.

I am the gaze that stops you mid-step. A warning wrapped in beauty. Venom in velvet.

I do not chase—I turn. I do not beg—I reign. I do not soften—I sharpen.

Once, my eyes turned from sweet to fierce, like an eagle. Once, my voice shifted from jolly to a roar, like a lion. Once, my personality changed from bubbly to gorgon—run for your life, boy, my snake hair will do the rest.

They whisper my name like a curse, but still, they look. Still, they want. Still, they fear.

I am the one they cannot hold, the storm they cannot quiet, the ruin they bring upon themselves.

I was not born to be kind. I was not made to be gentle. I am the consequence—the reckoning.

Stone-hearted? Perhaps. But only because too many tried to touch me with unworthy hands.

Misunderstood? Perhaps. Unheard? Not anymore.

I do not need to be saved. I do not need to be softened. I am the ending they never saw coming—and the beginning they cannot escape.

I am not your muse. I am your myth. Not the victim, but the legend. And when you dare meet my eyes—remember, I never blink first.
Gideon Mar 8
“Hello” is a bad word that sits at the tip of her tongue.
Like a snake’s venom, it is always there, always ready.
It lies in wait, hoping for the next unsuspecting victim.
The pain is preceded by hope. A glimmer of “Maybe.”
Maybe when those fangs sink into me, it won’t hurt me.
Maybe the sweet anaconda embrace is a hug this time.
Maybe this is the last time her hissed hello will bite me.
Heidi Franke Jan 29
Tell me of your delight
The wisp of wind
That catches your hair
Breezy enough to sense
The winds direction
To which you set your sails
Moving through glass water
Unwilling to break

Tell me of your delight
In the shell of a snail
Digging up its squishy life
For just you alone
Thumbing through
In a smile and a jar of joy
Enough to break a mother's heart
With every win and loss
On your way to manhood

Tell me of your delight
As you swing in the air
Legs kicking as branches do
When the air picks you up
No longer weighing you down
All cares wash through
The space of regrets
And deposit themselves
As pebbles on the shore
Where your feet will land

Tell me of your delight
Where the garden snake
Attempts to outwit
Your stride in the grass
As you quietly watch
With patience of a lifetime
That marches ahead in this stillness
That is between the distance
Where now is forever
In your hand you swoop up
A life trying to escape yours
Gleeful are you as you set
The creature free once more

Tell me of your delight
As you see the rays of a day
Shine on every stone
And drop of rain
Washing rivers deleting cares
Surpassing a mother's gloom
Her soup of ingredients
Marinated longer than your
Innocence wants to keep birthing
It will be her death that it takes
To be released and unburdened
So you can breathe again this day
Heart open to drown all sorrows
Brand new as the dew
Etherwise Jan 5
I got my letter but I didn’t read it,
Just followed along with my kin;
I wouldn’t let the Sorting Hat touch me,
And claimed to all I was Slytherin.

I never liked the other colours,
But green seemed to fit, and I felt like a snake!
Plus, when I’d want something as much as I did,
I was more than willing to be fake.

I didn’t try with witches or spells;
I missed class on purpose, and it stung my pride.
My Patronus, the crow, still crouched in my shoulder—
But even he’d known I’d lied. Now I’m trapped inside.

My life’s about art and academia, dark...
So I’ve poured over books behind secret walls.
An INTP means something to me,
Now I’m staring, completely enthralled.

I got my House but I didn't fit in--
At least not to the same degree.
Maybe I earned it for all that I was,
But now it doesn't feel like me.
I'm not a fan of Harry Potter, but I went to the theme park in 2017 and of course my family did the quiz. It got me thinking: if you begged the Sorting Hat hard enough, would it really put you in the House you wanted at the time, even if it wasn't who you'd turn out to be?
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