Skull (Notevember 2020, #28)

She heard you
But she would not speak
Questions were met with silence
Like an echo refused
And though she was cornered and caged
You were the fox
Caught in a trap, panicking
Desperate enough to chew a leg off
But at least an animal would bite off its own

I witnessed your desperation
As you tried to get answers out of her
Pushing, prodding, pressuring
In the dank and dirt and dark
Probing the far corners of her mind
The locked-away places
Where not even she would visit
And you had no right to
Damn you for that
More than any other cruelty

Your scent was rank
When you peeled away the layers
Clothes, mind, dignity
And finally marked her
So that her feelings towards you would show
And there she was –
More ash now than blood
With the naked truth around her skull
Blazing