C40
Public Record
Excerpt from novel: Best Cellar

Biting loose skin from below my lip.

Either debt tastes like metal
or my cheek is bleeding;
in either case never show your teeth.
How did this happen— what was that one decision,
the pinnacle, the pitfall, my downfall?
Did I dig this hole or just fall into it?
Don't look up, hope is sanity's poison.

Stay back,
stand still,
sweetly scented estrogen.
Your sex is not worth my self-loathing.
But please, bend over that I might
climb up your back
to make my way out.

Thresher Charles