The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Hearts for a Heart
by Angela Yuriko Smith
She beat the water with her fists, enraged—in hate.
She was looking for mermaids. Make them cry. Crush their lies
… they stole my Prince Charming.
Conniving, fishy girls with bare breasts and damp skin
had lured him to the drowning deep—a forever sleep
… but he went willingly.
Like a dog in heat, he ran off without looking.
A vacant pretty boy, just a toy to pass the time
… he isn’t worth the tears.
But she weeps, just the same. He was a fling, but her
fling. A sweet thing she imagined sharing tomorrows
… now he was yesterday.
The mermaids would pay in sushi and sashimi
bleeding, salty flesh flayed in the raw sand by her hand
… a feast for hungry crabs.
She waits patiently for the party girls to show
and they always do, seeking new toys to take and break
… hearts for a heart is fair.
Fiction © Copyright Angela Yuriko Smith
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.
More from Angela Yuriko Smith:
Angela Yuriko Smith is an American poet, author and co-publisher of Space and Time magazine, a publication that has been printing speculative fiction, art and poetry since 1966. Together we build a poem as a community each month. Visit “Exquisite Corpse” at SpaceandTime.net to submit.
Spreading the Writer's Word 
Sweet! Loved it, Angela!
Nice blog
Do visit to my blog and follow it too if you like it.
Wonderful poem.
Loved the structure of your poem and the italicised “poem within the poem”