dusky swallow
At my door stood reckoning in the form of a man.
He walked in slow, just like death,
his black attire drenched in rain-
the DI of NYPD.
The DI who solved all cases but one.
Walking into my small room,
confusion had got hold of his face,
erased the layers of confidence
and specks of (nonexistent) fear.
"All these years later?" he asked me,
squinting the very same eyes
he read that case’s file with-
again
and again
and again.
"I’ve called you here not to confess, mister,
but to release.
Release this weight that has kept me alive.
Alive for so long,
I’ve got to experience a deathbed."
His pupils were about to fall out, or fly,
like my soul would’ve
if I’d not done what I did that day.
"That sickening, appalling man
you tore mountains apart to find-
his voice made me shiver,
his hands disgusted me,
and his thinking made me want to throw up.
So when he tried to take what was not his,
I punished him.
He was a demon calling himself a friend.
So..." I whispered now,
almost as if he would come alive-
"I punished him hard.
The mountains you looked in?
I hit his head with a stone there.
I cut his hands
and sent him away to hell,
instead of tomorrow, today."
He stared right at me,
his piercing gaze could cut through anyone.
Hah, not me though.
"Where?" he asked.
She smiled,
pointing with shaky, withered fingers.
"Under the bed."
He took a step forward,
challenging look.
"Or shall I say, DI… under your feet?"
He’d been standing on the secret the whole time.
stoic folio
loud canyon
drifting rock
crisp tartan
buoyant minnow
weary breach
rotund orbit