The Well of Hours

It is the twenty-seventh hour afterwards. I cannot see or eat anything without being reminded of the sleeplessness and pleasure, the last lie I told. Everywhere a dark curse reminds me

I am not a real woman, but a wreck of a woman, a witch of a woman. The whole of myself confirmed a myth, starting with my empty tunnel of a mouth, my eye-tunnels, my witch’s brain one long damp unknown tunnel, all the tunnels a map of my witch vessels and witch veins.

Like a dog, I want to retrieve twenty-seven hours like a stick and keep the beauty safe. I am sorry I lied, I am sorry

I lied about lying and lied again this time so brilliantly you will never even know I have lied and lied right into the kind globe of your face.

I would retrieve those hours hour by hour until I deserved still to be cherished, until I undid what I did. I would retrieve then bury the hours so that the worst thing you feared did not happen after all and I would not be a secret ruin living in the tunnel of a witch-self you do not know even exists. I lied beautifully. We could live forever like this.

Alexis White