By Dina Al Awadhi

Trapped inside a glass bauble

I am numb

blurry images    muddled voices

a shadowed void of nothingness

suffocating          eternal

the fog descends and I am lost

I found The Crocodile in the great black pool

with tawny glinting eyes

a grin full of sharp black needles

How do I get out? I begged her

She leered at me, the needles growing sharper

the black gloam of the pool greater

a voice embodied the mist

 

Break the glass that binds you,

do not forget, or be forgot.

and a steel hammer appeared by my cold bare toes

I squinted at her and cried But this too heavy!

my fingers fumbling with the large instrument

The Crocodile’s glinting eyes narrowed

Do not stop until you break the glass.

She cautioned her scaly head

disappearing in the dark ripples

Tick tock. The Crocodile croaked

And her jewel eyes were

gone

I cried once more              then

taken with a sudden fear

stumbled through the mist heaving the great hammer along

my footsteps grew heavier

my heartbeat thudded slower

my eyelids drooped lower

 

Tick tock. The Crocodile croaked

And so I raced harder

dragging my legs through the mud

searching, searching for the walls

of my glass cage

when I suddenly slipped upon a sea of flowers

an ocean of lush greens blossoming

The Crocodile’s voice echoed in my mind

but the fragrance was

numbing

I slowed to a stop

I sank to my knees

I drank in the sweet nectar of poppies

Tick tock. The Crocodile croaked.

But her voice was now hazy

the nectar the stronger

her stark warning             forgotten

I spread out in my field of red poppies

glassy-eyed         the pale misted sky

I smiled dimly

And beside the steel hammer

that lay resting forgotten

by my side

were a hundred thousand million

hammers

all forgotten as well