Her

I met her once and only once.

Let me make this clear,

She wasn’t unwelcome, just uninvited.

​

I didn’t so much as see her,

But I felt her

long, nimble fingers

Wrap around my throat.

Her grasp was brash and cold,

Like icicles, so cold

That I attributed the burns to warmth,

The asphyxiation to the torch heated,

Humid air of summer in the Carolinas.

​

Now it’s clear that I was wrong.

​

Time was the aloe that reduced

The frozen, red hand-print from my neck,

But call me masochistic to wish this

Imprint would have stayed,

or at least lingered a little longer.

They say a person can survive 3 minutes without air,

And I was only 2:59 in, so I still had some time

For her to keep making her mark.

​

I’d like to believe

Others make the same mistake

And mislabel her character.

In my defense, I don’t know her at all,

I only met her once.

Maybe she is soft and subtle,

Radiating and gold,

An ember when it comes to second impressions.

Maybe she only blisters and scars

when she's gone.

I guess I won’t know

Until I meet her again.

​

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/9k3pal/untitled/e6wypa9

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/9k4yx7/swept_away/e6wy3ue