Pale Light Sonnets — Benny Garcia
poetry ☆
poetry ☆
1
Fingers trace fingers,
A gentle sway, she leads me in this dance.
She takes a step, our hands press together, my gaze refuses to meet hers,
She takes a step, fingers intertwine, my lungs are full of her,
She takes a step, I am restrained, our eyes finally meet.
She notices my hesitant step, pupils dilate, the room begins to twist.
Momentum shifts beneath my feet as my stomach churns to the beat of her heart.
She chortles and undulates as I go limp in her grasp,
We spin faster and faster, her words fall from her in wisps, “That’s it, you’re doing so well,”
My legs are taken from me and the spiral sharpens,
Collisions with the wall and a violent splatter to the floor, fervor turns to fear and it has nowhere
to go but my core.
She looms over me, a tapered grin and illuminated by something that is not
there. Hands sink into me and open parts of me never seen,
And the first to witness it is the Pale Light.
2
The Pale Light dances on my blackened tongue,
Displaying the gouging of my frothing heart,
The thought finally comes to me during this torment,
I do not think I am doing this dance correctly,
Her fingertips trace and claw, scraping out ribbon after ribbon,
My aching form, still freshly bruised, contorts and twists under her,
One hand occupying the concave of my back,
The other taking as much as it can hold.
She harvests the fruit within me,
Famished, she is, her maw melts at the sight of it,
She takes a bite.
“It’s sweet,” she says, “sweeter than I’ve ever had.”
She stifles a laugh, satiated. She’s had her fill.
That Pale Light still follows me.
3
My fruits long since harvested, my bruises long since vanished.
Why? Why when I close my eyes am I still blinded with that sickening glow?
The saliva has rusted over, my wounds sewn shut, but that Light,
Illuminates my every movement, every thought is scrutinized and splayed,
I have been reclaimed by the skin beneath my fingernails, I have already returned to what once was, but that putrid Light,
I’ve become nothing more than a decaying corpse, thoughtlessly under the impression of renewal.
Promised revitalization, new fruits to bear, new air to breathe,
However I now shamble on as rot, my scars are starting to harbor mold.
Her plundering echoes inside of me, the Pale Light shows me, refuses to let me
forget. I am spoiled.
I was promised ripeness, or rather I was ripe. Pristine, she called me.
The Pale Light knows what I really am.
It tells me so.
Benny is a queer creator looking to brush up and sharpen her poetry. After hanging up her pen in pursuit of professional development, she’s ready to let blood and sweat turn to ink once again. In between working in education, working on sound design projects, and playing fighting games, she’s foraging for any spark to inspire her next work.
