Archaic superstitions
have convinced the masses
that the girl who lives on the
13th floor is bad luck.
Her tears seep
from the hardwood
to the floors below,
electrocuting the dining room chandeliers
and burning out the sconces.
There just aren't
enough pots and pans
to contain her storm.
Furious,
the people downstairs
seem to forget
how there was once a time
when she would let them drink from
the fractured chalices of her palms,
sewing her fingers together
with cobwebs so that not a drop
evaded their thirsty lips.
Their hands do not reciprocate,
while hers do nothing but
give
give
give.
She yearns for the sight
of the number 13,
encircled like a new moon
amongst the rows
of elevator buttons.
Instead, they've
erased
her.
Burned
the letters & books & poems
she'd given them
over the years,
using the ashes
to rouge their egos.
Excavated the pixie dust
from her fingertips
(Do you recall
the death of Tinker Bell--
how her light went dark
after they stopped
believing in fairies--
after they stopped
beliving in her?)
Broke through the
stained glass of her irises,
plundering every
brilliantly-coloured fragment.
Bridging the longitude
of her spine, a laceration
from where the shards
were punctured and
d
r
a
g
g
e
d.
Basically,
they destroyed
every beautiful part of her
before hiding her in the attic
like a secret
(she has many secrets,
but so do they).
You should see her now:
The way she wears her loneliness so
elegantly.
(Then again,
did she ever really
have any other choice?)
Now,
she'll do anything
she can to keep
the cold from
permeating her lungs.
So she fills the tub
to a scald,
it's gnarled feet
caving beneath the gravity
of her sadness.
Matches smoulder
until the candelabras
are starved of their wax,
wicks frayed like
unravelling
spool of her heartstrings.
Memories both
kind & cruel play tug-o-war
with her capillaries,
some gliding
across her heartstrings
like a violin bow,
birthing symphonic renditions of
inside jokes;
chlorine braided
like ribbons
in the hair of best friends;
walks along sun-strewn culdesacs;
the scent of used bookstores--
something like vanilla and earth.
If only the girl
on the 13th floor
could deteriorate as gracefully
as the pages of worn books.
Each recollection of
betrayal
plucks at heartstrings
with calloused fingers
until they snap.
Ears are severed Julienne style
across the cutting board of her skull,
cuz maybe then she won't hear
the defamations that sit atop
their salivating tongues like pop rocks.
Don't they know their attempts at secrecy are futile?
That she can still
feel the explosive slanders
as they tremble against
the roofs of their unloyal mouths?
The roof of her own
fortress collapses,
shingles thundering down
in percussive eruptions.
Devastated,
she tries to create her own luck,
gathering charms to ward off the
skeletons quaking in the closet.
No rabbit's feet,
just her own paws
cleaved from her ankles,
by way of bread knife,
serrated and adorned in rust
from where her eyes
have hurricaned over steel.
No clovers,
only dead rose petals,
withered and cliche,
glued in fours
using whatever is salvageable:
stale candle wax
old chewing gum
brine.
No acorns to kiss
because tokens of love
have no place
on the 13th floor
(neither do fairy tales).
No ink.
Instead,
she writes
with her blood,
morbidly inspired
by the carnage.
(because carnage is all she has ever known.)
And despite their
archaic superstitions,
they still read her poetry,
stanzas stacked
like tarantula legs
(and perhaps just as lethal).
Keys are pried from the keyboard.
[ 1 ] [ 3 ]
[ E ] [ R ] [T]
[ I ]
[ H ]
[ N ]
Her words attempt to crawl
past blue monitor screens,
caught in a vortex of robotic actions.
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