“Under My Dark” by Lana Bella

Five long hours. Under my dark. I sprawl awake.
Tumbling through the house. Sinking against the
windowpane, watching rained acoustics patter on
the terraced roof. Cries of raindrops. Mingle with
a symphony of ghosts roaming about me. Then I
pour myself a memory from a simmering cauldron,
flavored of alphabet scars and flakes of consciousness.
Hands on the pot. A sudden blink. How do I pour the
liquid thoughts and lettered inks into a bottomless beaker
without leaving my body in a pool of shadows? But now,
my lips thirst for drink. To warm over the cold where the
bone is hollow. Until, I lean in, something exposed and
glassy, echoing on the surface. It is my eyes staring back
at me. Gliding through the fluid with hooked arms. And
its mouth slurping up the pale gullet, heaving off the
squirting blood. The muddy mass of flesh throws up
in the mirage. Then high above, a dullard of rain again
breaks over the house. If I listen, my heart would once
more weep and my eyelids would suspend in tears. So I
stretch my skin where the stairs lay muted and heavy,
under the particled air into which darkness goes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lana Bella has a diverse work of poetry and flash fiction published and forthcoming with Anak Sastra, Atlas Poetica, Bareback Magazine, Bewildering Stories, Beyond Imagination, Buck-Off Magazine, Calliope Magazine, Cecile’s Writers’ Magazine, Dead Snakes Poetry, Deltona Howl, Earl of Plaid Lit, Eunoia Review, Eye On Life Magazine, Family Travel Haiku, First Literary Review-East, Five Willows Literary Review, Foliate Oak Literary, Garbanzo Literary Journal, Global Poetry, Ken*Again, Kind of a Hurricane Press, Marco Polo Arts Literary, Mothers Always Write, Nature Writing, New Plains Review, Poetry Pacific, Spank The Carp, The Camel Saloon, The Commonline Journal, The Higgs Weldon, The Voices Project, Thought Notebook, Undertow Tanka Review, Wordpool Press, Beyond The Sea Anthology, War Anthology: We Go On, Wilderness House Literary Review, and has been a featured artist with Quail Bell Magazine. She resides on some distant isle with her novelist husband and two frolicsome imps.  facebook.com/niaallanpoe