Beneath the Scales
I.
Last night I dreamed that we unzipped our
.
skin, and to our surprise we found that
.
underneath everything
.
we weren't monsters after all.
II.
Lately I've been scratching myself raw,
.
all tooth and claw and maybe if I took myself apart
.
I could put myself back together in a way that wasn't so
.
destructive.
III.
I stopped being lonely when I met you.
IV.
I always knew that you weren't a monster. You were just the one who
.
taught me how to embrace people without flinching. You reached inside
.
my skin and unzipped my armored scales, left me vulnerable.
.
But you weren't a monster, not ever.
V.
Underneath my skin is the girl that loves you.
.
I want her to disappear. I want her to dissolve
.
into gold, reemerge as something stronger.
.
Steel.
.
Titanium.
.
Scales, teeth, and claws.
VI.
I didn't know what it meant to be lonely until I met you.
VII.
In my dream, we unzipped our skin
.
let the titanium plating fall to the ground
.
& looked each other in the eye.
VIII.
I was supposed to be a monster,
.
armored skin protecting me from
.
the hero's sword.
.
No one was supposed to get close
.
enough to look beneath the scales.
IX.
I didn't know what it meant to be human until I met you.
X.
Last night, we unzipped our skin.
.
I thought it'd be a relief to be human for a change.
.
But to my surprise, I found
.
that I missed the smell of smoke
.
from the villages I left burning in my wake.
Monstrous Woman
I live a life of quiet lycanthropy.
Silver teeth with bloodstains underneath;
translucent skin across my sides and front.
My voice a piercing echo of my mother's.
I live in a toolshed with un-white rugs.
Locusts in my bathtub, hydrangea on the windowsill.
Wallpaper peeling to show fungus underneath.
In the pale light of morning I lay out crisp new sheets.
I sit and watch the wings circle the drain.
My eyes are glassy. I grind my teeth at night.
My skin is red with cobwebs where I've grown.
I scribble on my walls and it is art.
I haven't slept in weeks. My fingers dance
across the gossamers. I itch to tear apart
my own ribcage with my own fingernails, sharp
with just a little dirt under the edges.
About the Author
Hailey Spencer is a fairy-tale obsessive and aggressive ant hater. She writes a lot about both of these things. She lives in Seattle with her wife, Elizabeth. For more on Hailey and her work, go to haileyspencerwrites.com.
