Beast, Meet Prey

Narrow hands crooked by sunlight,
Splitter-clatter over a pristine keyboard,
Spewing affected perfection and knowing eyes
Toward ugly hair and bitter minds.
Who knows what lies beneath that glittered smile,
Behind the laughter and the bold style?
Your approval cuts like razorblades,
And in the moment I smile back, fulfilled and warm,
Your poison takes effect, draining all vitality,
Leaving me hollow and worn,
Because I do know you.
I know you the way prey knows beast.

Little things catch in the hungry snarl
Of your white teeth,
Small things which make you large
With anger and seething.
No patience to be earned from affection,
No winning except through correction
- Some unobtainable measure of subjection.
To not be you is to be daily scorned,
To be battered by a flail-tongue tipped by thorns.

And when you smile all friendly and warm,
When you ask, and laugh, and concern,
My mind, so poor and infirm,
Has me all friendly in return.
But where the brain forgets,
The body informs with regrets,
You, cornered coney, need to run.
Run now.
Run far.
Run always.

It remembers for me that
For every kind word
You have equally been cruel.
That I have tried at times
To bleed your poison from
My shaking form.
That I have at night destested sleep
For the swiftness of hours
Which bring you closer to me.
That for years I have sat
And craved your approval
While you abuse me.

I know all this
And yet still I take it,
Through madness and self-hatred.
I remain, and lack the strength to leave,
Growing weaker with every ounce of venom freed,
Because no-one else would put up with me.
Because no-one else would cauterise me.

But although my heart would think otherwise,
And heed this, beast,
I am stronger by far than the grip of your teeth.

Because although you have me kneel,
I am not yours.
Because although I stumble and fall,
I rise again.
Because although you have me trapped,
My mind is free.
And one day when I gather my strength,
Your poison will be remedied.
I will leave.
And I will be free.
And the shell I have formed,
By the battering of your horns,
Will shatter you, as you once shattered me.