Somewhere around here,
There's a heartless *****.

Watch out for her

She's fine as ****.

Has it arrived?
Why, why hasn't it?
The hands that run this place
***** and test my spirit.

Oh but I am patient,
but stand not to suffer.
These bullies,
they will hear from darling Mother.

Mother will not be charmed
by this, this
hair on my chin.
How will she hope to recognize
her little Monkey kin?

Where is the razor promised?
She will be here quite soon.
I scraped and clawed barbarously, but
my nails aren't meant to prune.

Equanimity.
Little Monkey, breathe.
Allay the palpitations
and the grinding of your teeth.

Count. 1, 2, 9, 4.
In.
Or was it 1, 2, 4, 9?
Out.
Oh, Mother says it's not vital.
I'm sure she wouldn't mind.

Wipe your chin off of blood.
Good.
And bite your nails off too.
You are, no, I - am patient -
until the debt is due.

-

Like that kid, what was he called?
John? Jim? An arrant name I'm sure.
He hissed and said he'd tell on me,
for eating green manure.

He ran -
that poor little Penguin.
What Mother bestowed to Monkey,
his did not bequeath to him.

A splintered piece of fence in hand
- why is the razor not here yet -
A fall, a squeal, he could not defend.
Cowgirl, concede, plead, then stab.

Prying open a chicken's beak
was cleaner than plucking out his tongue.
This Jack? Joe? This brown-eyed snitch,
thought he'd won because he's young.

I ejected into his open mouth - no loss,
to assure my secret stayed unleashed -
and I never quite liked brown manure,
unlike Mother's eyes - a jade-green finish.

The Penguin family - an unexpected crowd.
All of them - mother, father, and two other browns.
They all screamed and the father lunged, but -
penguins can never beat Monkey on ground.

Each one felled by fence's tip.
1, 2... well the father was elephant-big.
And the others combined would make one more.
So two Elephants by Monkey's score.

-

My fingers with nails freshly removed,
evoke an image of that wooden stake.
Dripping and wafting - suspicious acerbity...
...I think she's here! 1, 2, 9, 8...

Blood-grimed hands no longer throbbing,
for it's all right now, dear Mother's coming.
She will kiss you and speak with her peridot eyes,
sing lullabies and... Where is my Mother!?

You bullies promised me Mother was coming.
Liars! Are you hiding her from me? Mommy!!
Monkey was good and waited meekly for you.
You thieves and brown-eyes, what did you do?!
And where are you taking me, if not to see her?
No I don't want to sleep, I want a moment with her!
Count your debts
- all of you -
for I have a patient nature.
You will all pay - when I get my promised razor.

When I was younger I wrote of cops and robbers
Killers, chases, drugs and thrillers
One specific story that was my favorite chiller-
Hitting big money houses in a quiet town,
What a young burglar grabbed was something he'd better off not found
A suitcase full of treasures not
What he thought was heavy with cash, commodities
Was weighted with remains of bodies.
Can't risk jail, no, he can't pay his bail
So when the killer came looking
The only thing to do was to cover up his trail.

I never finished the story, writing it was kind of boring.
I was busy drinking and exploring when
One night I met a man, and he was telling me this story
How he was almost caught robbing this old man's home
And of the couple things he gathered, a suitcase was one.
No- it wasn't full of literal bodies
Maybe this time, some actual commodities.
But he sold them soon after, to get money for his drugs and whatever else he revered.
That he introduced to his friends that he turned to cold bodies with his endeavors.
So my story plays out in metaphors and its true that rich old men can be killers too
Like the one in my town with the corpses in the walls
I wondered, if plundered, would the killer turn the burglar into another number
And finish my story for me.

she used to be a collector of the shards of broken hearts
but now she collects whole, happy hearts, the hearts she's stolen
jumping in jars on her bookshelf.
her petal lips part in a demure smile
she shows her teeth because she no longer has to hide ****** fangs
her delicate hands are covered in baby-soft skin,
washed clean of bloodstains
she likes to bake now
instead of ****
and she writes poetry
instead of obituaries