Fox & Prey

My hands grip the bruised lip of the sink.

 White knuckles popping, 

head bowed as if in prayer. 

As if!

There is a rat king in my sink! 

The rot sets into my heart. 

Fistfuls of hair: 

violent hacking jagged cuts.

I look like the rag doll I made as a child, 

only once I'd killed her as a teen.

 Projecting my trauma 

I mutilated her body and ripped out her hair, 

Now I look at my adult reflection -

she is me.

I was indeed a doll to him. 

"You're just so beautiful, it spins me out" 

He had said

 once he was done.

Towering over me,

he made me so small 

My body still catatonic 

I was animal: playing dead,

no movement at all.

He was the Fox comma Matthew.

 His namesake 

Ruining my plans for a fox tattoo. 

He smelt

like mixed spirits and McDonalds. 

His hot breath on my neck 

was carnivorous

smelling its prey for fear.

How long had we lay there in silence? 

Time slowed as he savoured each moment.

Fight or Flight aren't the only way these things go, 

freeze is the very worst.

The mind takes flight 

The body left behind at his mercy.

Helpless,

may as mell be limbless, 

like my doll was when I was done with her.

A week or so later I return for the first time,

wearing an itchy woollen hat

to cover the bald head a friend had helped me shave.

I discover that my flatmates had heard me scream that night. 

Unapologetic, They tell me freely -  

they had done nothing,

Bluntly,

they admit betraying me.

But, I wonder,

Can someone betray you

if they never were a friend?