"The Price for Company"
By Lani Hankins
I peeled back the layers for you to see deep inside.
I tore open scars, picked away at the scabs, exposing my core.
Wrote out the past as unhealed wounds.
The blood trails and flesh were your roadmap;
a path to my own undoing.
I let you in, too far, too deep, and you penetrated my floundering soul.
Tore back my eyelids, forcing me to see the horrors of giving to the wrong someone.
Your love was fickle, my devotion unwavering and pathetically blind.
Too desperate, too in need, to see the monster.
Like a nightmare, you burn away at first light, but as the moon chases the sun across the sky
Your ghost perpetually nips at my shadow.
Like wolves wanting to devour the moonlight you wish to feast on what scraps are left.
With each new scar you trace and you weave, trapping me within your web.
I prayed to never be alone and now here you are, stuck inside my head.
Lani Hankins is a former Army female engagement team member and a veteran of Afghanistan. Follow her here. Listen to the Savage Wonder episode with her here.
She blogs and podcasts at Kruse Corner.
Bunny: Poems About Surviving Military Life by Lani Hankins
Bottled Away: Confessions of a Struggling Veteran by Lani Hankins
The Gaslit Heart: A Story of Service and Survival by Lani Hankins
Eased Pain: Poems About Surviving Domestic Violence by Lani Hankins
What’s happening at VetRep…
Catch our interview with David Meadows on the Savage Wonder Podcast this week.
If you didn’t see it live, make sure you’re following us on Instagram so you can catch our Valentine’s Day Write Loud, featuring Dex, Mason Rodrigue, Keith Walter Dow, Lani Hankins, and Chris Madsen.
Registration is live for our first acting and playwriting classes! The classes are being offered at our Quaker Ave. location on February 22nd and March 4th. Find more details and register here.
VetRep is hosting our second public workshop, this time for War Wound by Philip Korth. We’re proud to hold this event at American Legion Post 633 in Highland Falls, NY which is our sponsor for the reading. Get tickets here!