Revenge Porn

by Robert Beveridge

Illstrated by Seren Derryth

I saw myself in the ice on the river

just before it broke beneath my boots.

I was jagged, haggard, a month of beard

that had never seen a razor, stained

with spaghetti sauce, maybe something darker.

My limbs gnarled, the rituals and inflammations

poked out at angles extremities should never go.

I left my cane on the bank,

struck out for the other side

for a reason lost to me.

I considered the wind an ally,

however temporary, the ice a friend.

Was there a fire back there somewhere?

I no longer remembered. I walked.

My hair grew. My limbs kinked, twisted.

I considered a lie-down, a snack,

the inevitability that the other side

of this lake was out there somewhere.

Instead, there was a sound that started

all round me at once,

and I looked down