By Misti Velvet Rainwater
Date: 5 November 1999

Follow the Leader

    come with me, my eager acolyte
         there are myths
             to create
            and burn
             to ash
         there are deathbeds
             to ascend
       stars to name
   seashells to find

      you can bring your true love's ghost
      you can bring your Catholic virgin fantasy
      you can bring half a heart
                     and a disenchanted mind
          that shuts me out and breaks
                     my finger

don't think I'll hold it all over your head
       like a cloud full of rain
           and lightning bolts
don't think I'll devour your carefully erected
            dignity
because you are blue and only able to
            take
I'm telling you now
            take
            TAKE
            take it all
keep it in a box beneath 
      your bed
with a loaded Smith & Wesson
      on safety
keep it in a drawer
to keep your condoms and phone numbers hastily scrawled
      on cocktail napkins
         company
put it in a Bloody Mary
  and shake it up

              this will only work
                if you hand me
                 the sword
                 and keep
                  your mouth
                     shut.