Last Words By Swan Lake

Becoming an animal is not so bad
when your wings are humming, singing,
when the passionate mane is yours,
when the coiling snakeskin is cool to your touch,
when your lungs b r e a t h e into the deep.

 But this was a different kind of becoming.

 Bones locked against me, rearranging, rattling;
arms strangled and flattened into filthied feathers;
blue scales not of my choosing
forced,             shelled,           hollowed         snail
smashed,                     detached                     dragonfly                     wings
mashed            up        into     pieces  and thrownbacktogether.

 In the legends, man is cursed animal, hungry,
Woman is blessed creature, mystic--
Truth be told, the victims are cursed.
Regardless of sex or sweet embodied form
The victims suffer.
The powers will listen.

 Oh and we are many, listening hunter.
We are many.

This piece was originally published in  Ink & Nebula

-Ellen Huang

 Ellen Huang is a graduate of Point Loma Nazarene University with a BA in Writing and a Theatre minor. She has works published in Awkward Mermaid, Enchanted Conversation, As I Am, Writers Ink, Our Daily Rice, Quail Bell Magazine, Between the Lines, Ink & Nebula, Rigorous Magazine, Whispers, The Folks, Hummingbird Review, The Driftwood, The Gallery, and Perfume River Poetry Review. She loves writing twisted fairy tales and directing original skits. Between tutoring young kids and initiating a new drama program, she enjoys practicing pyrography and reenacting Disney scenes on demand. You can follow her creative work here: https://worrydollsandfloatinglights.wordpress.com/