I wear my environment

My skin is mottled to the woolen grain of the asphalt

My suit is woven digital, intercellular, shortwave plaid

Rose gold polarized lenses to complete

my professional young adult disguise

I slip it on, and in I blend.

To become me I have sat across desks from demons, signed their papers

Let them convince me to pay them their interest, and teach me to charge my own

So they could reinvest the profits, ours now.

With serpents I have studied

Practiced smiles, mastered the seamless shuffle of sidewinders,

Splitting the syllables I hiss from their meanings to beguile and snatch eggs.

To twist, shed, and cleanse myself of what I have said and done.

The leeches invite me to sip their favorite vintages.

The web spinners brag to me in their parlors and I memorize their designs.  

For me, succubi draw back their lips to show pointed teeth and hollow tongues, and whisper what they’re there for. I listen.

They tell me I’m doing just fine for my age.

The abyss crowds my rods and cones

I see it, I see past

I steal from it, I learn

I smile at my tutors and crib notes in my pad

Your horrors become my future strength

The knowledge I can take,

is knowledge I can set free.

I have learned your greed as well. I will not come up short.

As the world stings, I do not fight the venom

I absorb it, it becomes my own.