Angel Feathers

Stained Portrait

Fadeout—line between good and evil
Drawn jagged within my heart—erased.
         I wear a mask each day:
         Good girl, proper, angelic.
Never an unclean word escapes.
No one guesses monstrous insanity
         lurks beneath:
Fights to the death, scenes of torment,
Dreams I wake up apologizing to God for.
Torn between abhorrence and fascination
I wear conservative values
Protected behind iron bars of fastidious rules.
         Who would I become
         If I broke out of prison?
Bitter nausea overwhelms my attempt to answer.
         Venomous spiders dangle
         In unswept corners of my soul.
Nightmares illuminate what I deny.
If I am who I am in the dark,
I refuse to accept myself,
Splintered between decent and dirty
Outcast from my short-circuiting mind
         bristling with electric barbed wire,
Chasing cockroaches in circles
         under a bloody full moon.
Is uncleanness my identity?
         Or is it my struggle, my burden,
         I've been assigned to resist?
                   Enlightenment at tunnel's end,
                   Or train wreck inexorable?

30 lines, 156 words.
Written for "Rebel Poetry Contest" 
Chosen Prompt: The Ballad of Lucy Jordan (written by Shel Silverstein )

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