Disclaimer: This piece weaves together memory, fact, and imaginative reconstruction. You can read the full disclaimer (plus more about me) here.
“Poison and Prayer” is where I share my poetry and reflections. The themes of my writing include betrayal, discovery, and healing. This writing means a lot to me, and I’ve made the full piece available to paid subscribers with craft notes to dissect my writing process and a prompt to guide you through your own. Thank you for supporting my work. -Sabrina
Nothing is true except the exaggerations. - Theodor Adorno
Fables
Why did her face go serpent-slick,
a hiss behind the paint?
Was it because I wouldn’t bite,
when tears performed The Saint?
That’s what I was exchanged for? (HA!)
No weight, no reckoning due.
A litany of nothing,
with nails acrylic blue.
Roy and Baldwin on my nightstand,
each truth comes line by line;
the moral writes itself:
a man without a spine —
will fold to praising fingers,
kneel to borrowed light.
All it takes is failing morals,
and his claims that he was right.
Wise women say men need one,
“a shoulder rubbed,” a spell:
he found a body, boulder’s grip,
that rolled in when his company failed.
She knew in ‘19 he had a wife,
four kids, and a family.
In ‘21 he told her he was divorced but —
we both know that didn’t happen ‘until ‘23.
She cried when she first met me,
she trembled in my light.
Her hands were shaking as she pressed record,
like fear that wants a fight.
He scripts his life from movie plots,
rehearsed for better pay.
I funded scenes, he starred in lies,
life’s credits will hold my say.
He said: record her every word!
(He’s done this deed before).
Wire-tapped, ready to sing,
bad choices, young, fourscore.
That face like the Boston Bomber’s,
but it never made front page.
Because Daddy had money,
so crooked cops got paid.
Now he’s got a loyalty prop,
rumors toll brief by his side.
But she’ll do anything he calls right,
his tolerant, co-dependent, “wife.”
She doesn’t know this phony man,
seeks his needs only and first.
He’s got the nanny in his clutches now!
Oh, you stupid, stupid little girl.
With three talaqs she’ll board a train,
And that house? They’ll buy her out.
Narcissists stay circling, watching,
whiplashed from their turnabout.
As for me? I long saw their colors,
there’s no peace in those systems.
His family was built on coercion and fear,
that’s why he moonlit as “Krypton.”
He leaves hearts on her IG pics,
karmic retribution like foam on sea.
He’s covert, vulnerable, the injured party!
Deflects to avoid accountability.
And she? Gym-posed, Caribbean,
near-naked shores and Skims.
Her teeth all split with tiny gaps,
like his alibis and whims.
She paces a jealous circle now,
declares their home, their front.
But storms don’t read announcements
my truth arrives to hunt.
Nothing there impressed me,
cuckoo that pushes in her rot.
Her Miami Kerato didn’t tip the scale,
because trash cannot bright gloss.
As for her IQ, well —
it barely exceeds that of a Stop Sign’s.
She stormed off from the table!
413 on speed dial (waaa!)
She joins the chorus of my foes:
“Sabrina is so mean!”
“Doesn’t she know there is a God?”
Yes, and He’s witness to why I bleed.
He swears by his deen, Islam!
He’s asked forgiveness of his God!
So where’s the truth? The money owed?
His conscious for hisab long gone.
