On wings of flame passion shoots through me; trembling blood as wartime rumbling; circling as hungry sharks, latent, yet waiting, with bated breath to unleash an ambush. A taut tension coats my gums peeling back truth as litmus test paper; my vermilion tongue holding secrets as locked chests forced to still in attic forgetfulness. I close my jaw, rock to and fro, re-rooting myself to nursery rhymes, a swaddled safety. I don’t want them to see. An ugliness hides on unsteady stilts where each bite could unravel me: teeth falling forth as the missing piece of an old hag stone rotating in wisdom’s hand wearing blank expressions. Smoothing holes, botching with patchwork gingham, a mismatched, circus fabric is my only shield: flimsy as fairy wishes, torn as blunt kisses on inexperienced mouths. I toil to conceal wishing only to morph within inky shadows where you say my name, letting my clown smile drop; its cherry-red stretch smearing the forest floor with candid drops of vivacious, vermilion truth. You fold into me as a sealed letter and blissfully forget. I do the same mirroring the comfort of symmetry. Reluctantly, I turn to face the world flashes of vermilion velvet paint my lips, speaking soundless flames: a hot coal truth.
Emma Wells is a mother and English teacher. She has poetry published with various literary journals and magazines. She enjoys writing flash fiction and short stories also. Emma won Wingless Dreamer’s Bird Poetry Contest of 2022 and her short story entitled ‘Virginia Creeper’ was selected as a winning title by WriteFluence Singles Contest in 2021. Recently, she won Dipity Literary Magazine’s 2024 Best of the Net Nominations for Fiction with her short story entitled ‘The Voice of a Wildling’.