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Martin Narrod Aug 2014
We keep on cutting, edges off the blind parts of our hands.
Everyone you don't trust is getting, a little too close, and
Soon you'll be so loud that all of your fears come out.
Each ounce of you, that I packed into sandwich bags
And shoved down my throat, that now while you try
To back out, your bloodied olive-sized organs
Get jammed in my lungs and my ribs. You pretend
That your heart is a bouncy beach ball filled with helium,
But with even the practice you had at lying, I can smell
How new at this you are. Some part of me, childish still
I presume, brushes my fingers through your hair and
Over your ears, then touches this face stuck with splinters
That you've tried to use scissors to combat every thing
Making you feel differently about us now. Now.

Using the contraption from when we started out,
The Jaguar convertible with the top brought down,
Cruising up to San Fran when we thought the sun was out,
But we managed to make it the only Summer where it snowed downtown.
Even with the hummer, you were on my right, looking backwards out
Of your eyes. Glass crystals cut the corners of your mouth, looking back,
I centered my turn-ons by the bruises I bit into your calves.

The number of times I've let you rattle my cage,
******* up my brain. The slave wage you paid,
Main-stage, 'The Rage', for a hand-me-down
Chance to get laid.

****** and God, a forty-hour a week job,
Benchmark No. 1, 'The Saw.'

Tailored into the skins, needle pins and numbness
Attached to the dumbest excuses to run with.
For the ***, the anticipation was sinning enough,
That every once in a while I could afford to be turned off.

The next three days and Maisie,
Your teenage head went crazy,
Every ten minutes you paged me.
The price of admission, I wished,
Would've been the attention I'd give,
A cannibal habit, you kicked. I quit
Bothering you about what your *** size is.

After eight months, of which I said they were probably closer to nine,
Was the beginning of when I could convince you to drive yourself
Into my house. While the closet I could afford ensnared you,
I wore washed up Air Jordan's with skinny black Levi's,
You dyed your hair to gray before going blonde, it went to your hips
But you kept a ponytail or bob.

I'm remembering now, nearly every other day at age twenty-two,
Going to Clark's and ordering hashbrowns with green peppers on Sherman Avenue.
Every resistant bone in my body bothers me, I sit with the transistor between
My first finger and index, tuning the ****, while rehearsing violent seminars
Between you and I that resembled closely The Bay of Pigs. Your fingernails never
Had time to grow long enough to paint. You also never wanted to wear high heels.

This is the first chance without plastic lunch-bags in my throat, that I can chew up my food, without choking on olive pits that have been Getting stuck in my esophagus for the last thirteen years.

Don't hate me.
I know you saw me, you're sawing at me.
But when I see you, I say, "Marry me."
We only have seconds left,
Give me your shallow breaths,
I'll cup my hands and catch the water while you drink from me.
Drink from me, every flavor that you can grip between your teeth.
There are only seconds now, I'm counting 23.
Why won't you love me? Why won't you love me? Why won't you love me?
I choke. I ache. I scream.
Kristine.

3 seconds left.
Martin Narrod Apr 2014
Maybe you're the colosseum. The code to get through the glass doors is actually just '1954'. You could put up the painting of me at auction, or I could take a cruise from London to the Islands North of Siberia, a stop in a department store in Northern Greece. I stop and take a ride in the middle front-third seat of a older friend's younger brother's car, and force all of them to come outside and see the spider's eggs at Bob-o-Link. Massive cornucopias of cotton walls entwined with silk.

In the department store I ask to be introduced to someone who can take me by the hand and recognize me by my number, show me everything I'll need to shoot a full-length feature, even how I can get to Prague so I can do a little shopping. But the horror of seeing is so frightening, and the girl that I came with wants to do nothing.

I find a little shop selling Czech candies, music, and newspapers, so I try to buy everything but the horror is getting closer. I'm in a lazy Susan, how often does that happen? One more turn and I'll lose my stomach contents and then I won't need anything.

I take a climb up a street that says "Smrzlinu Ahead," but the houses on the street are all either empty or boarded up. I drift in the soccer field, watching my legs, looking over my shoulder. I fall for a pile of clothes that can hide me but are also very soft to lay in.

Another cruise- tropical, perhaps? Somewhere for coy adults, who shed their skin in Winter when their eyes start molting off. Someday I will place both hands into the ocean, I'll dream huge, and go swimming until I start to laugh. One day I'll sink to the floor of the bourn, maybe the same day I wake up and I'm not swimming alone.

— The End —