The Breaking of a Mare

By Lynn La’Shae Howard (@dahlia.lynn_)

It was my intention to escape you

—untethered and bereft of the gnats

    that swarmed the rot of you.

What a suspense to be blinded 

either side of my eyes,

your voice a rumbling echo in the dark,

the prick of spurs against my thighs.

You ever broke a horse?

you pried, but I couldn’t answer you

for the red rush of my blood,

the dulled instinct swelling in my gut,

and when your branding had only done so much

you took to maple flavored falsity of freedom,

a sugar cube under the tongue.

I didn’t know the taste of my own grief

from the silver bit in my mouth.

The ripples in the stillborn creek

mirrored the wavering of you: my reigns

wrapped around your fists, my reared back body

set in monumental stone. 

The cowpoke I made my god,

who never cherished fragility.

You needed the conquering, 

the satisfaction of a breaking.

And I bet you never expected the day

you would become an urban legend,

the man who tamed the hellbent mare.

There we are in that photograph

hanging from the stable door. 

You with your blue ribbon, 

and I, swollen with my swallowed pride.

Lynn Howard is a young Appalachian based writer from Whitesburg, Kentucky. She grew up in a Holiness Pentecostal community, from which she broke free from to become a writer. Her work aims to capture the horrific essence of being forged from superficial dogma and forced faith, as well as the hardships faced by many Appalachians with dreams of seeking opportunities beyond the mountains.