the deer who watches me sleep (or ocular prosthesis)

I am sick of mediocrity

and of the blood that slips down my legs

and out of my lips

The hung head of a hunted deer

(stuffed & mounted on the wall)

How his eyes stare

at me from my bedside

The mirror yawns ahead of me

and I remember when I was young

how she’d tell me not to sleep facing a mirror

lest the Devil’s hands caress my slippered feet

but now I do most every night

And she hates me now

(though I’m not sure it’s my fault)

And we sleep cold and separate, even on sticky June nights

when there is more cicada than moonlight

And we haven’t hugged in years

Not when my dog died

Not when my grandmother did either

The deer stares at me still

and his eyes have become some separate being

An entity of the thickest dark

glinting, wet

Once I read this story

of a girl who put a priest’s eye inside of her

(the author was awful disturbed,

his father pissed in pots and pans) and I remember in the story

how happy it made her

this holy eyeball within her!

And as I stare at the deer

and watch the crimson ruff around his neck

glisten (from where the knife first hit flesh)

I wonder what might be behind a priest’s eye

How it might shiver with fingers dug tight

and perhaps it is morbid

but I do wonder how metallic teardrops might taste

Now,

facing the mirror

It reflects the eyes of the deer

and oh!

oh,

they were only glass

[ photo found on pinterest ]