Louise Bohmer

Slick stagnating walls block my escape.

The moldy ceiling nurses the harsh, infinite darkness

that grows strong and stout within this cell.

Outside, the guards hover close in anticipation,

Panting, hungry for my foolishness,

Eager to torture my captive flesh

and inflict fresh fear.

Outside, the fiend skulks toward

the entrance of my musty tomb;

I can taste his graveyard rot on my skin.

He aches for an injection

of my precious warm terror--

thick and sweet, it makes his senses swoon.

              I must not let him catch the intoxicating perfume

of my dread.

His sinister shadow drifts through

the aged cracks in the door.

Snorts of his lust and rage

titillate my climaxing fear.

I bite off the heads of my frantic screams,

As they hiss behind my lips

and try to claw free of my sewn-shut mouth.

My dichotomy of repulsion/attraction

yearns to make the beast its lover.

His belly throbs with a craving for my humiliation.

He is drunk on the wine of violation.

I must never appease his wants;

If I succumb, he will consume my existence with relish.

In this dank purgatory he will keep me chained,

until my corpse copulates with eternity’s dust.

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