I Remember

Who's there? Who's there? And I remember Flashes of laughter And lunatics Lost in the asylum Seductive propaganda Scrolling across my mind Like guerilla cinema. Belts and wooden spoons Flies in the afterbirth Like shadows across my brain And crawling on linoleum kitchens Streaming death and corporate concienceness into my brain And cracked porclein sinks stuffed with Dirty dishes. The early morning anxiety of gradeschool Dark stockings to hide the bruises. Secret friends and festive holidays And everyone in their sunday best Pretending to like each other. For generations and generations of Sad mistakes. Stealing away in the dead of night to Escape the stiff jawed henchmen in the hungry trucks Of an angry slumlord miles and miles away. Impatient and understanding Waking on the side of the road Hissing radiator hoses cracked like Burned skin. Days so hot a nuclear holocaust would've felt like siberian blizzard. And I remember The first time I felt it alive inside me Turning the deadweight Moving within the folds of its winged embrace Opening and sliding those black feathers Inches at a time. Those feet Pushing and digging into the membrane Deep enough to cause pregnancy And I remember it going numb And listening to it hum And I feel it move in its mysteries Exploring me And I remember this And I know I never had a chance. There's never any escaping it. --- I Remember - Otep