Photography © Deta Galloway

I have just returned from hell

There seems to have come a clarity to things..best than before..
Knowing full well…that what is done is finished
Already my mortal soul lives in the acceptance of my immortality
This is how it will be..
Death will take not only Us
It will take our World and this world away from Us
Truthfully in our current isolation
The purer memory of what and where we are already..commands us thru
reflective and prismatic lives
My illusions
My delusion
Mocks me from my facsimile

Alive yes
Alive yes
As the printed page
Read all over
These margins
Of my fragility
My fears visit often
As old friend
I am sitting down at an empty Table
I still set the table
With Plates
Some remain empty of food
A few people
Visit
I see that they are chewing some things
Reaching inside pockets for handfuls or mixed parcels
These are my Visitors
The self feeders
Arrive
Usually with Brown Boxes
Of prefixed items,
Food
Is squared
And the cookies are counted

I refuse dessert
I cannot fix my
Hunger or preferences
With sweet things
I have greater
Salty
Craved desires

My hungers
Return at midnight
Just before I go to sleep
I reach to my bed corner
For warm food
Liquid pouring over me
I wake up wetted
From water
Strong Stout
Or fresh Urine
These are my hungers
From the nightmarish
and unrealized
Dreams
Once awake
I see slimy consistencies all over my hands
I run…and roll
As I fall
And laugh to see Putty in my hair

There in the mirror
In full light
I see Vaseline
And bits of Strawberry Moon pies sticking to my hair

It is ok
There is no one here but me

I am thinking
It is better to sit up in my bed until Daylight
After all I am not dead
I use my head
I say
What is in my head
Remains untouched
By what haunts
Me on my head
And my Moon Pies
sticks only to my head hair.

It is almost day light
Yet my room is pervaded by darkness
Shhh. Shhh.
I hear feet walking out the door
The plant over my head is rustling in the breeze
over my head
Some one is laughing
Something is touching my toes
I kick hard
“Do not touch me!”
I scream.
“Who is it?!?” I scream.

Silence.

The room goes calm
The light washes the wall
The door slams!
Damn! .

The men in the house have their doors shut…and locked.
They said, “No, we did not hear one thing!”

Poet Deta Galloway is a self-described “Multimedia Artist, whose other pursuits include, painting, music, storytelling, professional dance, photography and ceramics. She was originally born in the Jamaica West Indies who emigrated to the United States at the age of 18. A professional nurse, she currently divides her time between Massachusetts and Georgia.