Alone in the Dark

Author: Stephen W. Cote

Fingertips tapping softly, overworking active thoughts

And formulating words and worlds for others to enjoy.

Thick digits, massed and prodding through pudgy hands,

Coldly key consonant and vowel into an electronic order

Dark amber, a honeycomb of stingers and sweets

Mirrors her swollen face, her mind clouded in anorexic dream

Her chair sagging, dilapidated as she rises,

Silently creeks and squeaks with the whistle of her wheezing.

The amber screen sighs a soft blessing as she turns away,

Rewriting the story, taking away the sweetness that disgusts her so.

Drear blades of thankless light radiate from the night lamp,

Pouring and wasting over the book she reads.

Never once would that light touch her face,

Under the force of her weight, the bed creaked and groaned,

Dying, springs popping,

light fading

At first in terror, then tears of melancholy and grief,

She clutched skeletal fingers to her chalky face,

Nothing more than a reed overwhelmed by her plush robe.

Somewhere in her the truth was left back with her primal obesity.