The Hunters are Coming

 

 

I hate November.

My stomach is in knots and I’m glancing over my shoulder –

I’m irritable and worried like when the madman tags along in my dreams

cackling cruelly as I fall from the tops of buildings like the rag-dolls on 911;

him, on his hands and knees as we scavenge through the leaves for my lost teeth.

The hunters are coming.

They are putting on their camo,

they are coming out of their campers,

they are cleaning the butts and phalluses of their flesh weapons

and the cock mechanisms of their metallic weapons –

They are coming for me. They are coming for you.

The other prey and I

no longer know where to run.

We are bumping into trees and

into each other

looking for boulders large enough to cover our asses –

looking for a blind of our own to keep us blind from

the night vision goggles

that see through my dress,

and the date rape

bait feed that

lures me closer –

easy to pull my pants down so they may

hunt what they like

licking their chops

they’ve eaten me again and again, every year the same feast.

My corpse is in the smoker house

making jerky of my thighs.

They have stacked enough wood

to transform me into venison, steaks, stew, casseroles –

And I am only one of the many faces

that will hang on the walls this year;

if you go there after

hunting, to have a beer with your

hunting friends,

Look into my eyes, because even though my

head is stuffed with…cotton and formaldehyde

they could not remove the anger in my eye as

those are not orbs of glass

but my real eyes still –

I tricked them into keeping them there

wasn’t that smart of me?

They shot me through the lungs

and the chest

and in my ass –

Too bad

it did so much damage to my body –

less meat for them to enjoy

but hey, they didn’t shoot my head open

with their virile balls of fire.

Of course not, as they wanted it on the living room wall

as a testament to their prowess –

a tally of testosterone

a trophy – someone’s trophy.

Little did they know it sparked a fire in my eye –

they won’t be able to enjoy their afternoon beer

as I will be staring them down,

singeing their red beards to ash –

no longer afraid of their man weapons

they’ve already had what they wanted of me –

so look out:

I’m eating men’s hair like air.

I take what I need, want –

give them bad dreams of a madwoman: me

Charybdis – Medusa – Empusa:

my body of a woman

with the head of a doe

and snakes for my hair,

snacking on men; cracking open

their vessels like coconuts

in hurricanes of estrogen –

my vagina open, gaping,

looking them in the eye

peeking over their shoulder,

laughing orgasmically

as they look through the leaves

for their buckshot, their slugs, their dragon’s breath

that fell out of their mouth, gums hung like rubies

the ones they ate me with –

now a smattering of spent metal.

The hunters are coming

for me, for you.

I’m too tired to run

and they dismantled my blind to hide behind.

I think this year

I’ll just lay down in a field – and

the combine has already eaten my friend, the corn.

I’m so scared,

I’m so tired.

Next year I’ll be

the Empusa I want to be

the Medusa I thought I could be

the Charybdis everyone expected.

I hate November.

**********

Elisabeth Horan is a stay at home mom in Vermont, caring for her two young boys, feeding her animals and writing her heart out. Her goal as a poet is to bring attention to issues that she cares about and has dealt with personally: mental illness, sexual abuse, the plight of nature and the environment, and those suffering in isolation and in pain.

 

Conver Photo from ClipArtFest.