Tonight's Poet Corner: The Hanging Man

The Hanging Man
by Belinda Roddie

don't you ever get tired
of dangling upside down
from a ceiling that's scarred
with more cracks than the mirror
in your mother's bathroom, after
she flung her stiletto heel into
its face as it wordlessly begged
for mercy?

don't you imagine a life
that's better and outside the
apartment where you lost
your virginity to a man who
never loved you, and you
were left with crumbs after
he consumed the feast, while your
mother did her mascara over
your crying body as she laughed
and laughed and laughed?

and don't you get scared of
the voices you hear from
the upstairs loft - the ones
who whisper your name after
two AM, and somehow your
mother answers back, but you
can't find the saliva to scream,
and all you want to do is drop
to the floor
and run, run, run?