Femme-fatale

I couldn’t speak

My mind ceased working

Standing there

With bullshit coming

Out of me

As my feet

Ached to flee

Me, the inept Bogart
unable to spit out

My most famous lines

It wasn’t the gun

She had aimed

At my head

I dreaded

I’m used to those

It was the shards of glass
in this femme-fatales’ eyes

And the look of contempt

She kept for those

Too weak to survive

The world in which

She’d survived for so long

Clawing her way to the top

Of every small ant hill,

Like this, taking

What she wanted

But rarely getting

What she needed,
spitting out men like me
like pits

Adding more shards

To a stare

That cut people open

Just to look at

People who always

Crawled away

Bleeding