Tall, lanky, muscle-less mess
Couldn't dribble a ball across the court if his life depended on it
Curly haired pubescent Nephilim
Always the last to be picked by either team
Neither knew
What I'd do
For a dollar
Or my tricks with Oujia boards and magnets
Begging money from mom and dad
To buy Famous Monsters magazine
Stills ancient even then of frankenstein's creation
Count Dracula, werewolf and wolf man
Terrifying beings from beneath the ground
Or coming down out of the sky
Grotesqueries so appalling
You had to keep looking, you couldn't stop
For all their mystery at least we recognized most of them
We loved some of them
Or maybe even empathized
They didn't seem as dangerous as my tormentors
Though they would surely frighten the living day lights out of them
Like a sordid copy of True Crime, it's pulp pages stained with ink that portrayed REAL death
I felt I was in unfamiliar territory
Dangerous and ever present
Hopping straight from the pages
To the real world
The walk home is always too long
To toss the monster magazine into the box that contained the other 16 issues I'd managed to collect
To put a record on the stereo
Lie back in bed
Stare at the ceiling fan
Listen to "Tubular Bells"
And try not to think of "The Exorcist"
Or the morons at gym practice the next day.

set your love free in hopes to repair the livelihood of controversy. yesterday’s savages are tomorrow’s saviors. in confidence under dimly lit familiarity, you whisper “the dosage makes no difference” as you sink into me like poison-tipped daggers securing a sought-after throne. we ward ourselves off from rumors of western winters and confide in the solitude of reciting famous one-liners with the Oujia board. you always hated how i didn’t take your obsession with unhallowed legends and celestial bulwarks seriously. it’s still hard to believe that the eyes that safeguarded my miserable legacy are the same ones wandered at the first sight of trouble. arguing over conjured arguments. talking **** about the screen door at your friend’s apartment. you were quiet on the ride as i finally threw apathy out the window, red eyes in tow, pretending to sing along with “I left Tennessee very much alive” creeping through the static of the country radio.

There under a
Full moon
Some teens plat with a oujia board
In the cemetery
They hear howling
From a wolf but they
Ran of at the howling thinking
It was a demon
It was dark and full of
Terrors that night

With a mind made out of Oujia boards,

depression became a medium to the whispers of premeditated suicides - they whispered - "take your life, engrave your skin and create a tombstone out of your body. Your grave will be honored with fresh flowers.."

"Well don't you know that this is death's romantic gesture?"

But I never befriended razor-blades, though I'm acquainted to feel how it feels to have my thoughts bleed -

And like an artwork I scarred down my incisions - and amputated these whispers like Van Gorgh's ear.