I will paint myself with candle wax

A special thank you to Stephanie Davies for her entry to the competition and blog. Stephanie originally hails from Australia but now resides in London. Her work has appeared in Glitterwolf, Vagabondage Press and Girls Who Fight. You can follow her on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/Stephanie-Davies-117332854945614/ and on twitter here: https://twitter.com/hellofditties

The vividness of my
    self loathing;
    its originality – I am the prodigy again, though
I am not the first person
    to have ever     hated    me.

    I will paint myself with candle wax
’til it is a thick and white chrysalis
    I can slip from, leaving behind
    some skin cells,
    fragments of my makeup,
        the imprint of the hair near my navel.
I will hang it
    high
        like an empty white piñata,
    loose the rope and watch it fall
            to meet the concrete beneath.

    I am Samara from The Ring – but upright, not crawling;
        and not black and grey, but red;
    and not blood red, but a vivid red, like a crab –
    and I am spindly and sharp
    and emitting a creaking sound
    and taking up the whole hallway.

    Ugly ugly ugly cloud of venomous roiling sulphuric acid bile,
        bottled,
            stoppered by the cork of my blonde hair.

Stephanie Davies, London

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