one



Her mouth was parched. So dry that when she opened it, she cracked. Dust flew from her lips and she coughed in a futlie attemp to intice some moisture, a droplet of spittle to wet her dirt caked tongue.

Her hair was matted. Nests of lacklustre hair tangled with dry caked blood. Her own blood.

Her fists were stiff, nothing could pry them open now. The skin peeling, knuckles split open to the bone. Bones that had yellowed from rot. One day they'll be white again, bleached from the sun when they lay exposed. Like a truth.

She knew truth could set her free. But her guilt ate away at her, her shame gangreous and feverish, her hatred rotting her very flesh.

Nothing could annoint her. Her sins were not her own. And her self defilement fed on her pain. She walked a treacherous road. The road of neither the living nor the dead.

And yet still she breathed......

2003-09-12 8:04 a.m.