Bitter by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Everything at her fingertips

And everyone

But no one completely

All these years

Looks and body

Eye-catcher near perfect

Until age bent her bitter

Teeth sharpening into a horror

Cavities decaying

Mini effigies

Oozing from her brain pores

Snake ghosts

Bread of dry crumbling cells

Burnt toast

Wrapped in a hardening cocoon

Captivity hung

Nightmare on a hangman’s noose

Sobbing until cutting loose

The fall

A last grasp

Changing slap

Picking herself up

Stumbling to the pond in the garden

Moon-mirror waters

Kneeling

Quake

Cupping her hands for a drink

Ripples of time she tastes

Finally understanding herself

Acceptance of mercy

Bitterness into freedom

Beautiful wilting of a flower.

Stephen Jarrell Williams has had over 1,000 poems published nationally and internationally in print and online magazines. He has been “the poet on call” for Billy Graham’s Decision Magazine, called by some The Great Poet of Doom, and has been the Editor of Calvary Cross, Dead Snakes, and UFO Gigolo online magazines.