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.