There is a man from my city that spent his nights
killing and ******* men for the hell of it.  Sometimes I worry that
his blood might be in the water like 160 year old cholera
or 30 year old cryptosporidium.  Sometimes I worry that
I breathed in the stardust from which he was made, that I
swallowed the ashes from which he burned.  I do not think that
I will ever be American ****** enough to fit the bill, and
this might be my one true happy thought:
at least I am not a serial killer.

I closed my eyes in August and saw the dried up teeth of my
estranged grandmother floating in a pool of blood and thought about
how the phone works both ways.  I opened my eyes in
October and thought about spitting up the chicken bones I had
been choking on since second grade, when my father
helped prepare dinner for the last time.   (I think I might have
                                          sacrificed a couple people to the devil
                                                        without actually meaning to.)

I find the numbers
             13,               16,               and               18
to be unlucky and I am beginning to fear that the pattern
will continue, that 19 will be the year I finally get bitten by
poisonous snakes outside of my dreams.  God whispered in my ear
and told me that a different Helter Skelter was coming.  He told me to
keep breathing easy, to trust in his light, but when I
asked my Magic 8 Ball if I should quake like the Earth in 1960, the
day after Satan released Dahmer from Hell, all I got was a
bright blue, “Better not tell you now.”

The séance I conducted last year in a blackened, decaying cemetery
did nothing but rattle ghosts, and the four-year-long pity party I held prior
did nothing but chain those ghosts to the floorboards.  I have
never been good at abandoning my thoughts and feelings.  

Some mornings I wake up face down in the Green River or
with my head severed and on display in a refrigerator of a house that
is not mine.  Other times I awake buck-naked in Death Valley—
sand coating my tongue, my tonsils, my esophagus; burning
and scratching into my flesh—and I know that I will never
be able to forgive my father for destroying everything
he ever made or his mother for turning into everything that’s
just      out of                     reach.
There has never been a time when I have been
good at letting go of grudges.  I am far too aware of my own existence.

At least I am not a serial killer.

blood stained fingernails
hollow eyed
intestine pasta
with a beating heart side
you don't need it
but i need it
a swig of ipecac
to polish off your favorite shade of wine
a kick of copper and regret

but i am eating
her stomach grew smaller
she drowned a little deeper
a nasty lie beneath gritted teeth

come back darling,
dinner is served

Your skin is softer than silk
Your hair shines like the midday sun
And gazing into your periwinkle eyes
I know that you are the one

One night you finally invite me
Into the place you call home
I shiver with anticipation
As I brush and scrub and comb

But there are bones shoved under the doormat
And blood dripping down from the stair
What horrors I find that night
As I venture into your lair

There are legs hung in your kitchen
Fingers on the dining table
Forever watching eyes on the fireplace
Like some grisly fable

But that is not the worst
Of the torment I endure tonight
As I turn to run from you
You take away my light

There's a knife in my side
As you drag me, so strong
You rip and tear and consume my hide
Until my life is ended like a crash of a gong

Harlequin queen
she looks like a dream
if you count nightmares
as pleasant things

She comes around at midnight
because that's where she reigns
she's got memories in her pockets
from picking all the brains

She'll eat your beating heart
with a pulsing cherry on top
and when she's finished with the rest of you
she'll smack her crimson lips with a pop