Predator | Srijoni Ghosh

I was returning from an abandoned, ancient garden,
Where leaves shriveled & branches, barren,
Glistened under the pale moonlight.
Little invisible insects squeaked from within their burrows.

Frantically I ran,
Trying to suppress my nightmares, which
Sprang up from beneath the thick cover of fog.
Trying to hide my scars, my sins,
Under the veil of darkness,
When suddenly,
Two veiny, slender hands emerged -
Like long trails of misty clouds
From an obscure, cloudy silhouette
(Hades in the disguise of Apollo) -
Engulfed my face from behind,
And obstructed my way...

I drew in,
After a long time,
His bittersweet scent.
It intoxicated me;
Like a toxic fume,
It polluted the soul
I'd been desperately trying to cleanse.
Silly me, I inhaled it until
I couldn't breathe at ease anymore.
His voice, more cruel and hoarse today,
Whispered my name tenderly.
It hit my ears anew
Like a long-forgotten melody,
And strangely enough,
Seemed euphonious again.

Waves of obliterated memories
waywardly struck
My fragile conscience.
My foolish eyes, involuntarily,
Caught a glimpse of
His sweaty temples,
Valleys perfectly carved on his cheeks,
Which sunk deeper whenever he smiled his devilish smile,
That I had once been too familiar with.
And a pair of deceiving eyes,
Able to take anyone to heaven and hell
At the same time.

I fumble, tumble, and crumble -
My eyes shrink and shut
In acute pain
Surging from within my turbulent heart.
My legs go numb –
Perhaps a part of me
Wants to be ravaged, once more.

And then, within a snap of his fingers,
I was there again,
Where once upon a time,
A grapevine, while snaking up an oak,
Had metamorphosed into
A parasite,
And
A saint had turned into
A sinner...

Now, as the sharpest of his claws
Dig deeper and deeper into my flesh,
And the deadly web of his malicious charm confines me from everywhere,
I realize
	I've become
	His prey again.

Srijoni is an aspiring teenage writer who expresses her own bottled up feelings , thoughts and emotions through her works . Pablo Neruda , Jane Austen and Shakespeare are some of her literary inspirations . She mainly loves to write about psychological topics , societal conditions , human relationships and about the complex human character.