Picking the Bones Clean

by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

I should have known
that eventually you'd come slithering back
you crashed into my life
like a train wreck
and completely turned it upside-down;
fucked with my mind
screwed with my heart,
basically made me realize
that Satan is very much alive and well
and living in California
I must say the experience
really opened my eyes
and taught me a lesson I will never forget;
it's been a tough road,
but I'm a lot stronger because of it all
since then I've taught myself
how to pour alcohol directly into the wound
to help it heal,
notch the skin and suck out the venom
and build a barbed-wire fortress
around my heart
you managed to make quite an art
of emotional and psychological torment;
one can only assume that you've experienced
more than your fair share of that
at some point in your past,
but what amazes me
is not only that you scraped my own plate clean
while casually picking the remnants out of your teeth,
but that you had the balls to come back
for seconds