...

Mr. Possibility

He beat me to the floor
of the white colonial
I grew up in. He tied
one hand to a table leg.
The table was too heavy
for one person to lift.
Unless that person
was as strong as my intruder.
“The world is full
of possibilities,”
he said in the tone
of a shady private eye
a greasy used car salesman.
I was bleeding from
the upper lip. It seemed
funny to taste what
ran inside me for all
these years. He turned
on the radio to some
techno station from France.
I heard chairs and tables
scraping hardwood-he was
moving furniture to make
space. “Wanna dance?”
he said, again with that
same ironical tone.
I was too tired to nod No,
to whisper that I hope
he breaks a leg,
to even vomit. I was too
tied up to dance.

- kyle hemmings -