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Bogdan Dragos Feb 2020
as a kid
there's nothing
like wasting away inside a tiny
room
sitting on the backrest
of the couch
looking out the window
and seeing her
tread through the rain

a red umbrella covers
her.

Mother

she's going back
to the liquor store
Jonathan Moya Sep 2020
Abandoned in the middle of the blasted field,
its arms shredded, legs battered,
the chair exists in broken splendor
catching the best of the speckled light
dancing in the quivering shadows.
Lines of the seated father stain the backrest,
motherly molds are left behind in the seat foam,
the relentless kicks, tattoos of children’s feet
bruise the red velvet of the front rail.

At dawn, pulses of light run along its rails
dispersing all shadows to the wet ground.
At the speed of forgetfulness
two robins alight on this storm orphan,
widow, widower, this sole survivor,
with twigs to build a new stick home.
C S Cizek Feb 2015
Third floor psych ward window lookout,
second from the right on the east side.
Best seat available, padded, from 1934.
Backrest Swingline-stapled to the faux-
Maple leg support 2 x 4s. Beige bedspread,
white walls blend into the door threshold
that people are honeymoon'd
through kicking the aids, clawing at their eyes.

But Téa sat there watching the overcast
shadows sweep the sky heavily
like the watercolor paintings on the group
room plastic table where ******-off
preteens paint Dad beating them,
or Sis dying in a car crash.

Téa just sat there while the stagnant Valley
tumbled dry low outside, tuning out
a black patient behind her riling-up
another fight with a plastic-hinged
particleboard door.

Swinging.
Brandon Jul 2014
She
She had been planning it for almost a year. Her skin had felt ***** ever since she felt his touch. She screamed no between tears and pleas for help but no one came and no one stopped him.  She went to the police and anyone she could think that could help her after it happened but she was told it was her fault. That she had been asking for it. That she secretly wanted it and enjoyed it and only got help afterwards out of some guilty conscience on her part. That she was drunk and wearing clothing that revealed too much skin. That it was her fault. Her fault. Her fault. Those words echoed daily in her head, tormenting her insides until she no longer recognized the woman she saw in the mirror every morning.

He was free. Out in the world doing as he pleased. Smiling. Partying. Working. Free.

She remembered carefully peeling off her clothes and putting them in a trash bag that night. She got in the shower and lay in a fetus position, drowning her tears and sobs with the water pouring out of the shower head. It was the last time she cried.

For the first few months she went around to the local haunts she knew she had seen him at before but did not run into him or talk to anyone that knew where he was. She did not know what her intentions were but she knew that she had to find him. To confront him. To resolve the way she felt inside. She was about to give up when one day she saw him walk into the gas station as she was filling up the tank in her car. Her body froze. Her mind raced. She topped off the tank, hung up the pump, and jumped into her car. She idled her engine and watched thru her car's windshield the man buying some beer, cigarettes, a bag of chips; laughing at something the cashier said. He looked the same as he did when she met him but his hair was a little longer and he was clean shaven. She remembered feeling the goatee he wore that night as it roughed against her face as he held her down. She cringed. Her face tightened into a grimace.

She put the car in drive and followed him as he walked out of the station and got into his truck. She maintained a couple car lengths behind him, even allowing other cars to get between her and him but she never lost sight of him. She followed him down the highway, thru neighborhoods, sat outside as he stopped off at three different women's houses; picking each woman up and kissing them as they answered the door and pushed it closed behind him. She followed him home and say outside his house even after he had shut off all the lights.

She did this for months. She watched. She followed. She waited. She learned his schedule and she studied his mannerisms and his movements and the way he carried himself differently around every person he came across. She felt herself coming to know him and know his next move before he made it. She made a plan up in her head.

-----------------------------------

He couldn't complain about a second of his life. His father was wealthy and he grew up privileged, having the best that money could buy, including paying off anybody anytime he came into trouble with any form of authority. He knew he was good looking and knew how to work his charm to get what he wanted from whomever he wanted. He didn't care about anyone but himself tho he told many women that he cared only for them. He always laughed hysterically inside every time he told this lie and they fell for it. His pleasures came first, that was how he lived and he saw no end to it.

He had been ******* his best friends wife when he was at work, telling her that he was a **** and didn't treat her right and that he was getting *** on the side. He wasn't. He knew this. But convinced her otherwise. But he was getting bored with her and felt like moving on. After he was done with his session; as he called them; he told her that her ***** was loose and tired and that he was done ******* a filthy **** like hers. He threatened to tell her husband everything and make her come off as some ***** if she said anything. Claimed that he was just a man taken advantage by a ****. She cried and screamed and threw plates at him and told him to leave and told him to ******* as she collapsed into a mess on the kitchen floor. He smiled and laughed as he walked out of the house, nearly skipping joyfully to his pick-up.

He slid into the drivers seat and pulled out a cigarette from the pack he kept in the glovebox. He lit it and inhaled. He looked into the rear view mirror and saw a pair of icy blue eyes that he had the vague recollection of knowing staring at him. It was the last thing he saw before everything went black.

-----------------------------------

She hid in the rear cab of the truck and waited for him to see her before hitting him in the head with a hammer. Not hard enough to **** him but hard enough to make him blackout. She climbed into the front seat and pushed him aside and drove to an empty storage unit she had purchased under a false name. She parked the truck and dragged his body out of it and into the shed. She clumsily picked him up and propped him to a chair sitting in the center of the unit. She taped him to the chair with duct tape. First taping his hands together behind the backrest, then around his chest until the roll ran out and she grabbed another and taped both his legs to the front legs of the chair. She placed a piece on his face around his mouth, wishing to herself that he still had his goatee so she could rip it off when she removed the tape.

She splashed water on him to wake him up. His eyes burst open in fear and he struggled and mumbled but could not break free. In front of him she had sat a camera up. It focused on him. It was recording.

She stood in the shadows behind the camera with only her face exposed. She could feel him burning his stare into her and searching his memories for her face. She knew he found it when his eyes widened and tears began to form at the corners. He mumbled something thru the tape. She pulled down a black ski-mask over her face and walked into the cameras frame. She peeled away the tape.

He sobbed he was sorry. That he never meant to do it and that he felt bad about it everyday. He told her he had money and would give it all to her if she'd let him go. He begged. He pleaded. She knelt down and looked him in the eyes and whispered in his ear to confess to the camera and she would let him go. He started to scream. She smacked him hard across the face and put another piece of tape across his mouth.

He rocked about in his chair trying to set himself free but soon realized that he could not free himself. He cried some more and looked at the woman who once again stood behind the camera. He stared at her and into her and finally resigned himself to what she asked for. He nodded his head and she walked out from behind the camera and stripped away the tape.

He confessed to ****** her and six other women. He confessed to touching his niece who was only ten years old inappropriately and denying it to her parents when they confronted him, saying she had an active imagination and they should get her help. He admitted to paying off judges and cops and eyewitnesses anytime he found himself in trouble.

He admitted to many things that made her skin crawl. All she wanted was a confession of his assault against her but he kept going on, rambling thru tears and pleas and more tears. Finally he was quiet. She asked if that was all. He stared at her with glossy eyes and shook his head yes. She looked closely at the man in front of her, disgusted to depths she did not know existed. She walked towards him and replaced the tape on his face. He again attempted to struggle to no avail. She walked out of the storage shed and to his pick-up and grabbed the five gallon bucket of gasoline he kept in the back of the bed. She walked back into the shed and closed the door again.

His eyes widened in terror. She confessed to him that she was going to let him go after he admitted what he did but after hearing everything she had decided that she could not. That it made her sick to think about him walking the streets or even rotting in prison. She couldn't trust any system that kept letting him and people like him off. She poured the gasoline on him, even removing the tape and forcing him to swallow some so that it sat heavy in his stomach. She replace the tape for the last time and looked at him. Looked into him. She felt fear leaving her body. She felt pain leaving her body. She felt an overwhelming sense of peace wash over her and she smiled and laughed for what felt like the first time in her life.

She walked out of the camera frame and turned around. He sat in the middle of the room, tape to a chair and covered in gasoline. The camera was recording. She lit a single match and then a book of matches and threw them towards him. She watched as the flames engulfed him slowly at first and he squirmed in his chair and the flames worked their way up his body quicker and quicker and she could hear his muffled screams and see him struggling but still securely bound to the chair. Everything aflame. The camera still recording.

She pressed stop a few moments after she saw his head fall forward and his body stopped moving. She watched the flames a few more moments eat away at the man that ate away at her. She took the video out of the recorder and put it in a plastic case and sat it outside of the storage shed. She closed the door and walked off into the distance, smiling and enjoying her life and the fresh air.
I was hesitant to post this. A friend convinced me to.
C A V Dec 2012
Cold floor
Bathtub backrest
Sharp things
Exposed skin
Secretive nature
Loud voices
Dark liquid
Blank ahead
N May 2015
I want to form cities on my tongue, built up with all the beautiful things I've never said to you. The people would be clothed in white, and the skyscrapers would kiss my palette. I would take you to sit on the park benches, where fingernails have indented the wood and first kiss dates were carved into the backrest. I would walk you down the sidewalk, made up of all the unspoken "I miss you's" and let you pick flowers that have bloomed in the cracks between the pavement. I would show you the beauty in the darkness of empty alleyways, I would hold your hand on the edge of the tallest bridge. I would kiss you in front of the world, and shout my love for you into the void.
There are so many words you have never heard. So many times my lips have articulated "I love you" but never followed with a sound to resonate it. Maybe that's why we're not in the city. Maybe that's why you're at the other end of the room starring at walls, waiting for them to cave in and fill the silence. We always wanted more than this, but I have this fear of leaving and you have a fear of losing what was never yours. I hope I can show you the city someday, maybe you'll see my love for you clearly under bright lights. But until then, I'm trying to find it in me to get my tongue untied.

— The End —