I can play
the razor,
you can play
the skin.

One cut.
That is all I need.
I will make you love me
and that will make you bleed.

Blood pumps through a heart,
beat by thumping beat.
That makes them best
to conquer and
also best
to eat.

The killing fields
right here at home
are somehow different
from those that we've known
no longer war
on foreign fields
but there's a body count
this new war yields
students and teachers
professors and preachers
murders committed
by horrible creatures
are there no answers
to the question why
these monsters keep killing
causing mothers to cry
life is not ours to take
nor a game that we play
when will this madness end
will there come such a day
a day of beautiful peace
love shared man to man
the tools of killing laid down
would be a wonderful plan
but I know it's a dream
one that can never come true
and that thought and the stress
leaves me ever so blue

I won't act my age, not if it means
losing any more of my precious time
here on this earth. I'm already this old-
what's the point of spending days thinking
about what I should look like
or how I should behave?

I went to the hospital to see him because they told the family that he would soon pass but he was holding on for something.
He was my moms father, my grandad.
All I saw was him lying there on the hospital bed basically dead. He was suffering so much to just be able to breathe.
I watched his chest beating but I knew the machines beside the bed were making him breathe.
I know he wanted to let go.
He couldn't speak, nor see.
I held his head in my hands and said goodbye and kissed his forehead.
We left the hospital.
The next morning we got a call saying he died in his sleep last night.
I couldn't even bring the tears to my eyes.
It was just shock.
I saw his only the night before, still alive but barely.
It's Wednesday morning and the funeral is at two.
I'm wearing this ugly black dress that's too long for my liking but we have to be appropriate because "that's what he would want"
He was a horrible man, he cut me and my family out of his life ten years ago, wanting nothing to do with us.
He wouldn't even recognize me now.
It was an open casket and he looked like a stuffed doll.
A wedding ring on his finger and a nice suit and tie around his body.
I was waiting for him to wake up, saying that he wasn't really dead, the suffering just magically stopped.
I rest my hand on his shoulder and his body was so cold I could feel the ice stretch through my arms making my body shiver.
They led us through a dark room and told us to take our seats.
The pastor only talked about God when my grandad wasn't even a Christian man.
Asking us to raise our hands if we had excepted Jesus Christ into our hearts and all these hands were raised in the air except mine.
I felt his eyes stare me down so I put my head down staring at the tile my black heels were standing on.
The floor was caving in and it was hard to breathe.
There was an American flag resting on his casket.
I realized that this funeral wasn't for the dead, it was for the people who were still alive.
It wasn't a celebration for the man laying in the casket.
It was a gathering for people to whisper and judge.

we are monsters
from the boutique to the
embroidered throw pillows the
pen dashed around the neck
stage 5 bone cut
sawing ossification to the
hollow core

we are monsters
hooting in tunnels lined
with bats coming out to feast
creation
to scrape the streets
shimmy the walls
bust the coffin and
succckk

we are monsters
who can't enter under the
doorframe
fearful of being burned by
the sun silver stake
rat poison holy water sickle
and windmill ash

we are monsters
sewed stapled dead meat
skin hair plugs ceramic
teeth tested and tasted by
rats

we are monsters
jumping high over white
fences frenzied explosion
running through corn
angrily bled in a field shot and
hunted like embarrassing
waterfowl in the jaws of
mammalia

we are monsters
of flaming brilliance flashing
in your inbox
read us and gnaw
braised
roasted
grilled limbs
watch
as we watch you
be scared and
stab
I promise we don't die.