Lilith

My Lady burns me with green leaves of poison

ivy, tenderly sliming my crumbling cheeks

that press against the mirror to watch her kiss my

frozen reflection with embarrassed lips. She once

called me “coward” for not following her out of

Eden, but I was simply lazy, laying on soft

red blankets made by weavers who infected 

me with their insipid smoke, strangling my

virgin lungs. Now she has stolen Eve, too worldly

to be seduced, and beckons me to chase them,

barefoot on screeching pavement. Perhaps they plot

to kill me, high upon a rocky altar at the first sign

of a vulture, but I am not afraid of seduction.

---

Nathan DeBar is a poet and short fiction writer from Leakesville, Mississippi. His short story, "The Long Morning," was selected as Editor’s Top Choice by Syx Papers Lit Mag. His poem, "Manhattan Cafe," will be released in the Georgia Bards Poetry Anthology 2025 in June. He has been published in A Sufferer’s Digest, The Solitude Diaries, Flash Phantoms, Floating  Acorn Review, and many others. You can find him and all of his published works at his Instagram and Linktree: @nate.debar.