Self-Defense

I’ve been letting the tiny snakes
rattle around my brain,
until one is unleashed
like a tongue,
eliciting some wound you’d
rather forget,
elucidating the long and windy
outcome of memory gone extinct.

What if we let ourselves become animals?
What if we weren’t good versus evil
or man versus man
but something that’s only been
whispered or yelled?

All that’s loathsome has tarnished itself.
The only thing left to do is decide:
polish or destroy.

It’s wise to differentiate between
easy and forever. It’s wise
to remember that some messes
are better left behind than washed anew.

Kat Hofland is a writer based out of Phoenix, Arizona. She is a co-founder of Rinky Dink Press, and her work has been featured in Light, Little Somethings Press, Insight II, and High Shelf Press.

Photograph by Kat Hofland.