Member-only story
The Hanged Man
A poem
Thoughts like bats suspended
From a clay ceiling, a hood over their heads,
A noose around their ankles, and ours.
We squirm for a dance — for ropes to loosen,
Stools to kick off and trapdoors to burst,
To bungee-jump into a candle-lit purgatory.
Your hands upon my back, still —
A shuddering stillness as we rewind
Our slowed Pas de Deux,
The parched earth above our heads,
The skies swelling, thundering beneath our feet.
We wish for eyes midnight-glazed, for lips shisha-sweetened.
Ears soundproofed to all but the heaving saxophone.
And faces wedged between muscle twitches,
flushed confessions.
We are hung by the Fates,
Banished by the Furies.
Still, we yearn for hands
that crucify like barbed wire,
For moonless nights that drool
Onyx wax onto the skin,
So that all that sees us is us —
We, The Hanged from a concrete tree,
Chew on bitter reality,
Unliving, undying
We, and our comatose bats.