sympathy for the snake (20161208)

Posted on by crow

teeth are gross
basically
it’s your skeleton
tearing through
your skin
where it’s weakest
where the “in” funnel
opens the food tunnel
to that snake inside you

we’re all the serpent
in the garden
trying to slough off
skin
to live forever
on someone else’s dime

but who wants to live
forever when your bones
are trying to escape
by ripping to shreds
everything that tries
to enter you

it got so damn hard
with these extra limbs
the difference between
sliding off a sock
and struggling out
of a straightjacket

Published by crow

I'm a writer and a dabbler. I live in Washington.

11 thoughts on “sympathy for the snake (20161208)”

  3. I love it when somebody writes something that makes me see something so close to me and mundane is some ways and realise that it can be thought of in such a different way. I would never have thought about our teeth in this way or the fact that when we open our mouths its to some snake within us but it makes sense.

    1. Thank you! I can’t claim the idea for the snake part as my own, but teeth really are unnerving. The only thing weirder than teeth is seeing them photoshopped where they don’t belong.

  4. it’s always interesting to read a poem that shifts one’s view of the world, even if slightly. the sock-straitjacket images provide a cool connection with serpents sloughing off skin. and then we also get to see our place in the scheme of things: the serpent in the garden.

  5. The snake that lives inside of me keeps wanting to eat mice. Ugh. I struggle not to put one in my mouth when I come across them in pet stores. Ha! Cool poem — makes me think silly things.

    ~PR

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