Speak Up

I’m drowning in a lake of fire with tiny heat resistant mosquitos biting under my arm pits and underneath my panties.

That’s when I hear a voice behind me- or maybe it’s beside me.

“Excuse me can you speak up please.”

I think I’d rather die.

Right now.

But it’s really hard to choose.

When I can’t glance up to look into their eyes,

their glares around my neck like a noose.

I feel their thoughts, I can feel their pity.

I’m sure I sweated off the makeup making me feel pretty.

I imagine there’s a face on the hair

at the tips of my pubes

forcing themselves through

the pores of my skin down there.

And so I pray...

God.

“Just let there be a bomb!

Eradicate these feelings of stupidity.

Send me to duplicity,

With alotta money and a pizza too please.”

Then someone still sitting in their chair,

interrupts the fantasy of my unanswered prayer.

“Speak up!” “We can’t hear you in the back!”

My nervous chuckles

can’t make up for,

what I seem to lack.

Then sudden haunting memories come to mind,

as I fumble through the papers I can’t seem to find.

It's then I remember somehow,

I’m not that broken little girl with hands over her mouth.

I look to their eyes this time but see something else.

I see the love within them that I have for myself.

So I put my anxieties in their place.

Looking my life straight in the face.

Time to speak up,

time to say exactly what I came here to say.