Modern Medusa

I walk along a fragile line

with you on the other side.

Though twists and turns approach I keep my eyes trained forward,

always forward,

as you keep your eyes on my steady hands.

No tell on earth, no fault line, no rock or cave or crack can crack my focus

Take from this my impossible weakness and sigh in defeat as you follow on your side.

Know the sides will never switch

will never intertwine

as you watch me on my moving pedestal.

See I have something you wish to find

wish to hold in your grasp like a newborn at a finger or thumb

like a like a poverty-riddled mother for one more digit in her bank account

like a dying man for air.

Your heart and livelihood in my palm just inches away from being under my skin, in my bloodstream, and deep within my bones

You don't notice it yet, but the day will come when I stop walking and you think you are ahead.

I will cease to move

I will be made of atone

and you will believe for several moments that you are free.

You will delude yourself into thinking you are whole again, that you can go back to normal, that I am no longer a threat to your way of life.

I know this day will come because you have already deluded yourself into thinking you were not whole.

You made yourself believe normality was lost.

You posed me as a threat when I could not even move

when I was already made of atone

when you already held your own heart in your palm

when my palms were empty

when my breathe was shallow and said you were suffocating

when you had nothing to seek for everything you've ever wanted or needed has always been yours

and if it wasn't you would take it

and I let you take from me

and I said nothing

and I saw nothing

and I was nothing

but you saw an enemy rather than an ally.

You saw a criminal and a threat and a distraction

you saw a thief and a liar and a corrupt soul

and I saw one too

but I saw not I me but in you

and you know what I saw so you looked in my eyes and turned me to stone.

But I broke through concrete to be here.

And I broke through rubble to breathe.

Now my air to you is noxious

and that line is now ebony and scaled with eyes like fire and a tongue like knives

and it moves and twists and you can't see it because you're so damn colorblind that the solid ground and this dancing reptile look the same to you

and now your own serpents fall from your head as you are covered in lines you can't see and cross without care

and you are confused when you are bitten.

And you are confused when the spell is broken

and the spell is broken

and my eyes are still trained forward.