Once –
I shattered worlds.
Whip smart
Whip
I ran rings around their mind games
Without their even knowing;
My iron clad intellect marching ever onwards
A tool of deliberate destruction
A weapon of choice for the playground
Ruthless.
Breathless
In my appetite
For first mental blood.
Within the circle’s bounds
The line, drawn ragged in the dirt
I gleamed;
A crystalline clearie
The marble to be prized
For my snark
And singing sting.
With me, the bunny hole would be taken
The game well won;
Two fistfuls of cat’s eyes and steelies
Clutched tightly, tightly
In the victor’s grip.
My scorn and derision
My quickness of tongue
Were as potent a reflex
As any physical offering.
I was queen, queen of the game –
I ruled all;
My empire
Born of fear and fragility
Made of glass and grim strength
And I their empress
A totalitarian tool
Able (they thought) to be thrown at will.
Now
The whip draws no blood.
I recall the sharpness, the clarity
But through a haze
Darkly
My memory and mindset
A fissured field of cracks.
No longer the Empress, Cat’s Eye;
My crystal is chipped, and I know
Soon, soon…
Soonest
My value will be null
The circle scuffed, snuffed out by the feet of time
And I left –
Here.
Abandoned in my vacant and stale psyche
Rolling eternally, forever forgotten
In a locked
Dusty
Drawer.
