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Creep
He was the man on the bus
who pressed up against me with putrid breath
blowing in my face as he whispered obscenities
knowing that if I tried to move I would have to come
in contact with his sweaty bulk;
He was the French teacher who leaned in a little more
than necessary, while reviewing a lesson that I had already
gotten a perfect grade on, and who was later discovered to
have molested his students on a field trip to Quebec.
He was the editor who hissed, "Come here, little girl",
even though I was a fully grown woman who didn't need him
to wield a pen, nor to put in writing
just what I think of them all.
The Life of a Paranoid On the Corner of Mitchell and Weedpatch
He pulls the trench coat of silence up around
his scraggy neck, his unshaven face making
scratching sounds against the fabric of his
denial; Furtively, he looks about, tension
pulsed in each movement: even his breath, heavy
with anxiety, is sweating as he tentatively tests his
surroundings, ever watchful for the enemy who can
appear in any shape, any form, a once-friendly face
might turn traitor at any moment. He thought he had
counted the cost, but miscalculated: the price is too high,
his sanity has become his own ransom. He swallows down
the clench of the bile that rises, as he takes a halting step into the
too-bright glare of the afternoon sunshine.
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