a songless bird

that would be the nicest
name she’d been
called

the others,
far more common,
being
that little *****
your ******* kid
the little rat
useless ******* that came outta you
and others

She liked the term
songless bird
It was a title worthy of her in
all the good and the
bad ways

The songless bird stands
locked in her room
and knocks and waves in
the window
for she has no voice to sing

She gives silent cries to the
neighbors and
the passersby when the noises
from the other side of
her door
get too violent

or when it smells
of smoke

Which happens
every now
and then

she kept saying how much she
hated her tattoos

and kept showing them
to us

"Got 'em when I was young and
dumb and now I
jus' wanna rip my skin off."

She pulled her skirt up
to show one on her inner thigh. "Ugh, look at
this one. It's supposed to
be a bottle of Jack but looks
like a wrinkly **** that's about to
get in. ****, and this one… This one
looks more like a **** than
an eye, really." She kept pulling her
skirt up farther and farther
until it became very
clear that she
had no underwear

"You wanna touch it? she'd ask
from time to time

It was funny cuz she was in her late
twenties and we
were kids. I was twelve if I remember right

She probably got a kick
out of making young boys *****

It validated her
and we had not a **** thing to object

Good times

high school dropout

out of a job

out of options

soon to be out of the
rented studio
apartment

he went to the local bar
and drank himself
to the point he had to *****
to make room for more
and next thing
he knew
he was dating a woman
named Cactus

Life can get pretty
weird when
you don’t live it
consciously

I knew the guy and heard
he moved in
with his lover
and started a new life

I really, really hope the
headline
“LOCAL ALCOHOLIC DEVELOPS SCHIZOPHRENIA,
DISMEMBERS GIRLFRIEND
PLANTS HER LIMBS IN FLOWERPOTS,
STICKS NEEDLES IN THEM”
is not about him

there have been
too many fights lately

she was a
musician
and she put it as,
“Darling, we need to change
the tune.”

He was a
writer
and he shot her

and then himself

it was dark and
hot
and every breath entered
with salty sweat
inside the nose

the mouth was
gagged and the whole head
covered by a
black trash bag
with two very small holes,
unaligned with her
nostrils

Her skin was itchy all
over
but there was no scratching
with hands and feet
bound to the chair

She didn’t realize that she
was in hyperventilation
and it was making things
worse

After the four hours
it took him to come back to
the basement
he found the greatest
disappointment of his life

He found her dead

There’s no feeling like
paying good money
for a toy
only to bring it home
and find that it’s broken
before you get to
play with it

He broke down and cried
for a whole hour
as he sat on her dead lap
and caressed her hair
and kissed her gagged
mouth and ****** the
snot from her nose

She was beautiful
too

Weeks later he was unable to
forget her
He carried her eyeball inside
his mouth wherever he
went

She pushed gently against me
and fell on the
bed
Stretched a leg towards me
began unbuttoning at her
jeans

I helped her take them
off
Not too gentle, not too rough

Grinning, she turned around
in bed and said, “I just
remembered, you never told me
what your muse looks like.”

“Huh?”

“And please don’t tell me
it looks like me. We both know
that’s ******* sweet talk poets use
to get girls. Don’t
lie to me, boy. What does your
muse look like? You
can tell me.”

I reached for her foot
moved it out of the way
not too gently, not too rough
Reached for the *******

She pushed my hand away
not too gently, not too rough
“Tell me. Is it, by any chance, a little
girl locked inside a basement like
it was for my ex-boyfriend? Do you
whip her when she’s naughty
and doesn’t give you inspiration? Do
you deny her food and the
bathroom?”

“What?”

“Tell me, poet! Do you? Do you
lie on your back when you *******
and imagine the muse
squat above your face
and shower you with her ****
as blessing?”

I took a step back. “What?”

“Oh ****,” she said. “Just tell
me already what your muse
looks like and how d’you get
intimate with her. Tell me!”

“I, I don’t know. I don’t work
like that.”

She stopped touching herself
Watched me expecting
to add more

I gave a shrug.

Honestly, the last time I thought of
a muse it was
some broke, homeless young guy,
scrawny as a putrid
plank and roaming the streets

He had nothing in this
world
but hunger
A hunger that possessed him
and made him write like a madman

That guy was my muse

But I figured
she wouldn’t care to hear about that

Anyway, we didn’t go out for long
after that evening

She said we’re not compatible
because I’m too vanilla

It’s been a rough rainy season
and rain always
put father in
the drinking mood

He drank more in this
rainy season than
ever before in his life

Mother’s missing teeth
and broken shoulder
were proof of that

Surprisingly
the old story about falling
down the stairs held up
with the doctors

Well, just like he messed
his wife up
the rainy season messed up
the roof of the house

He downed what was left of a bottle
of ***** and got the
ladder and a few tools
and went out

His son held the ladder for him

He always cursed
plenty when he worked on
something. He was cursing his
wife as he hammered at the
roof and said something
about his son not
being his

and the second best thing
about his fall
was that the son didn’t even have
to shake the ladder, as planned

Father just fell on his own
thanks to the ***** he
drank before climbing up there

The first best thing about
father’s fall was
that he landed on some
screwdriver in his pocket
and got stabbed in the kidney

The pain must’ve been
something to follow him
all the way to the afterlife
as he bled to death
and cried silently

The kid watched him,
watched his watering eyes,
and kicked dust in his face
and went back inside the house

They waited until it was too
late and then
called the emergency number