painted roses pave the way

to lilac dreams of yesterday

a view of hills in morning gloom,

the shades i’ve craved, in rapid bloom

close to something, soon attuned

his sentiments have healed a wound

"Why don't you take a long walk on a long pier!"

"Thank you that sounds nice"

"Wait no, I meant take a long walk on a short pier!"

But it was too late.

He did take that walk, and he enjoyed it immensely.

The sunset was beautiful that evening and he met the love of his life, feeding seagulls.

He made a great joke about how if they were in the bay they would be called "bagels"

He loved that joke.

They fucked that night.

Oh Lord did they fuck.

She showed him things he never imagined.

Christ, the things the human body is capable of if one is determined.

"Bagels" hahaha that was such a good one.

He understood why her body welcomed his so willingly.

Bagels.

How absurd.

They got married and had a child.

They named the child "Bagel" to commemorate that beautiful evening of raw passion and consensual violence.

I am that child.

My dream is to meet someone to be the cream cheese to my bagel, as my parents were to each other.

If you think you can be that person please leave a message at the tone.

[BEEP]

he'll always find

the beauty in the young

with brittle bones hidden

beneath soft cheeks

never truly hollow

rather filled with the rage

and patience of a woman

with so much to give

and years to live

I needed an extreme amount of energy. A weather spell far surpassed my normal output. I figured if I could get something tangible to help channel my magic it might just work. Even from a distance the carousel was beautiful. It had shining organ pipes so that when it was running this place was alive with music. The horses’ saddles were gilded and colored in muted pastels, and the creator had built sconces into the giant center post. I lit the candles with a wave of my hand. The sun was setting fast which meant time was short. I could feel myself overflowing with mystic energy as my heavy, black boots hit the hardwood floor of the machine. I could swear the wooden eyes came alive in sympathetic stares as I poured myself into the wood and metal. I got to work immediately. I crossed the circle in five points, marking the floor with chalk as I went. At the last point I grabbed the saddle of the horse nearest me and climbed. My jacket and boots didn’t make shimmying to the top of a massive carousel ideal, but something told me that the highest point at the center would offer me the best chance of completing the spell in time. The top had almost no foot holds and was angled enough that I had to crouch to make my way to the center. I knelt down facing the setting sun, and almost forgot what I had to do. The fair grounds were laid out before me with fiery light bouncing off every shining surface. Oranges and yellows playing against bright pinks that shone almost white at the edges. I could live forever in this moment, sitting on the precipice of a possible collapse. I swallowed that image like a violent shove of motivation. And with my palms to the sky I started begging the universe to send me winds. I plead for rain. For full, dark clouds to blot out that beautiful sun-down and send storms to me. And the sky darkened. And the wind whipped. And as the shadows grew and the earth’s breath became heavier I let my voice raise over it. And underneath me I could feel the carousel picking up speed. I concentrated on its tumultuous, turning weight. I let it pull the air around it in cyclonic energy. And as my chanting grew louder and more insistent the storm hit with enough ferocity to extinguish the candles I had lit. And in my panic I made a quick and sacrificial decision. And with my left hand I kept the storm careening towards us, but with my right I sent flames licking the hooves of the horses. Crawling up their bodies and scorching their rose and lilac skin into bubbling black and brown. And as it caught on the saddles I knew that I no longer would need to concentrate on the fire. It would devour myself and my companions. I had conjured my own demise. And it only fueled my frenzied desires. I was a dark and slender effigy blurring into the background of uproar that was the sky. My face upturned in communion with the world above and ground below. And I screamed the wind into violent fits. It whistled through the organ pipes creating an eerie soundtrack against the resounding destruction of nature. And all the while the machine below me was a spinning, reeling inferno. Surrounding me in pirouettes of revolution. Turning with magnificent force. And as the water-logged clouds filled the sky with black and as the fire worked it’s way up the bodies below me and as the wind breathed life into the organ pipes, my voice finally reached its peak. And the ghostly sky opened in torrents. And the downpour turned to tempest. And as the water fell in heavy curtains I saw the ground shake. I felt the air around me quiver with the psychic disturbance that my storm had created. And the impending flames below me were extinguished. And as I spent the last of my energy and fainted atop my steeple, all I could hope was that the fissure in energies would be enough for everything that was to come.

Lie to the child,

with meek and mild

fantasies,

distractions,

to focus on the toys

behind glass walls

to ignore the girls and boys

standing small,

clothed in dirt,

painted with hurt,

grasping for the lights

on the tree,

behind the pane.

To ignore the women

working through the holidays

with no days

to celebrate with a family,

that they don't have.

Feed the child

with images of a jolly man

so maybe they won't understand

why Daddy comes in painted with whiskey

and smoke eyes.

Cover the child

with carols and christmas specials

so maybe they will be fooled

and won't hear mommy scream

and daddy breaking down doors.

Brainwash the child

with these traditions

for generations.

Children mirror their parents,

especially with Christmas memories

The villain always wears a suit. You ever notice that? Every villain you ever meet looks damn good. It’s a representation of power, I suppose; of prestige. An Armani suit sends a message, and the message is: I know what I want, and I know how to get it.

And yet, we always root for the other one. The scraggly underdog who shows up in a hoodie and an old pair of sneakers and not a single business course under her belt. Just snarky comebacks and maybe a convenient superpower granted to her by the cosmos. And seriously? What the hell is that?

I wasn’t born with super-speed or invisibility or laser-eyes. I didn’t stumble into an abandoned science lab in Ohio and contract some virus that turned out to be the gift of levitation. Or however the hell it happens these days.

No.

I built myself from the ground up. I worked my ass off all through tech school, learned to build whatever I didn’t have. I earned people’s respect through nothing more and nothing less than my work ethic, my unflinching ability to look at a problem and solve it. And yes, sometimes solving it means making sacrifices. Sometimes people get in the way, and you do what you have to.

So here I am, suddenly the villain in the Armani suit (though I prefer Burberry), doing what’s necessary and getting condemned for it. And now here comes the doppelganger of Little Red Freakin’ Riding Hood, rolling up twenty minutes late, on foot, in her dumb, red hoodie with a damn hole in her sneaker. It’s insulting, is what it is.

And even now, I can tell you’re rooting for her. You haven’t even said anything, but I can tell. Granted, it might be the tape over your mouth, but still. It’s in your eyes. You want her to win. But the thing is, even if she beats me, she won’t solve anything. I’m the problem solver, and the problem is one that can only be fixed by someone who has my resolve, someone who is willing to make the hard choices.

You think Little Red over there could wipe out half of Cincinnati just to protect the few, non-infected people who are left in the world? No. But Cincinnati is ground zero. That’s how we stop this infestation. I know you don’t see it that way. You call them heroes, genetic miracles. I don’t know why you think this isn’t a disease. Just because the symptoms happen to be super-strength and mind-reading doesn’t mean it isn’t an infection that needs to be snuffed out before it spreads. Humanity is in danger, and I seem to be the only one who understands the gravity of the situation and...holy shit, did Red bring friends? Okay, now I’m insulted.

I specifically told her to come alone. You heard that, right? I said “Come alone, or your brother dies.” I was very specific. Very clear. Guess she doesn’t value your life much, huh buddy?

Look, I’m not happy about having to kill you, believe me. Despite your feelings to the contrary, I am not the bad guy here. I’m only trying to do what’s….

Wait.

Did you hear that?

Wait.

Wait wait wait.

No, this cannot be happening!

I planned for this! I planned for all of this! You can’t…

Goddamnit.

She sways in the warm summer breeze like a sheaf of wheat, her bare feet planted in the spent soil. The moon is just a wink and her eyes have not yet adjusted; she wonders whether she’ll be swallowed by the dark earth beyond the oval of thin porch light, whether it is thirsty enough to open up and drink her down, down. It would be cool in the earth, and firm. Quiet.

The house, too, is quiet beneath the hum of cicadas and the whisper of breeze, but its quiet is anticipatory. Its quiet is a held breath, the suspended moment between booted footstep as they draw near to you: One. Two. One. Two.

The house knows how to swallow her into its silence. Many times it has opened its maw around her, and in eating it always grows hungrier. She can feel it now in the prickle of her neck, can feel the jaw opened wide behind her, the teeth poised to draw her back in and swallow her down, down. She wonders if this time it would crush her first with its dull molars, if this would be the final digestion.

The thirsty earth shivers at her just beyond the porch light, its grains of parched dirt rustling in the breeze. “I’ll drink you down, down,” the earth promises, “I’ll sip you like a glass of cool water.”

Her foot lifts, and then the other: one, two. “Alright,” she tells the earth as she steps into darkness, “okay,” because it sounds better to be sipped. She’s tired of being eaten.

In the center of the garden stands a spurious weed that the gardener continually overlooks as he amends the soil. It keeps dodging him, a chameleon grown from a dubious single seed, that does not belong between the beets and the rutabaga, until it is unearthed.

***

Ipecac syrup was still there on the same third shelf, isle two, but it was no longer at my eye level. If I hadn’t thought my Momma’s antidepressant was a chiclet, I could have avoided my acquaintance with that cranky sounding elixir. Kalamazoo Meemaw had been in town, and it was she that commandeered the mission over to Lee’s Drug Store hair’s on fire. I assume my Momma would have let me face press the carpet if we had been home alone. Meemaw said she didn’t mind cleaning up the ladles of vomit, while Momma feigned another one of her headaches. Who doesn’t mind cleaning up vomit?

What was I trying to do? No matter how many times I put my hands in my pockets, the money for the gift was not going to magically appear, but I convinced myself of the notion “sometimes miracles do happen.” The pharmacy counter was not particularly busy, but as luck would have it, Mr. Spooner was last on the line. The big and tall shop was in the next town over, the only place he could possibly shop for clothing. Years ago I had blurted, “Momma why is that man so fat?” just as he sauntered by us near Schaffer’s ice cream parlor. “You’re getting the soap.” she said. The soap was a thing at our house. That time it was Ivory. Not as bad as Irish Spring, but still, I don’t get what I said that was so wrong to deserve swallowing suds. The man was a side of beef. Did I lie?

It was not Ipecac syrup I was hunting, but rather a second bottle of Aquamarine, my favorite and the first and only perfume I had ever used. When Meemaw sent me $5 for my birthday, I ran up to Lee’s and scored the last bottle on the shelf. If you ask me, the name Aquamarine might conjure up a stench of something akin to the scum at the bottom of Uncle Ray’s fish tank. But au contraire! The TV commercial delivered. “It smells just like flowers in the rain.” My Momma disagreed with me and the TV because after my first splash, she told me I smelled like a cheap boar, laughing her rump off when I fought back, “Don’t call me a pig!” Wouldn’t I have loved to offer her a dose of the soap. Preferably Irish Spring.

But soap was far from my mind as I pretended to shop. It was pretty popular Andrea, and procuring her a bottle of Aquamarine in my amygdala, motivating me towards what was about to come next. Surprised she invited me to her sleepover birthday party, I wondered if the invite was a pay back because I never stopped her from looking at my math answers. Who cares? I was going come hell or high water. When I asked my mother for money for a gift she laughed and told me to figure it out.

So I decided to figure it out by using Mr. Spooner’s wide girth as a solution to my dilemma. Thankfully, a recent shipment of Aquamarine had come in so that was not a part of my problem, but my empty pockets were. Keeping one eye on my prize, and the other on the backside of Mr. Spooner, he conveniently blocked not only Mr. Lee’s view of me and mine of him, but half of the front counter too. I lifted the blue glass bottle successfully tucking it under my tie-dyed T, slithering backwards out of the store, for however many harrowing seconds it took. When the jingle jangle on the door ceased, my angst did not and I vowed to find a way to pay good ole’ Mr. Lee back. It was the first and only time I had been driven to steal, and I wasn’t sure if I believed in God, but I decided to ask for forgiveness anyway.

Andrea said to bring a sleeping bag, which could have been another dilemma and wasn’t because when I called good ole’ Uncle Ray for a ride, he told me I could borrow his. If it wasn’t clean, it would have to do. Spongers can’t be persnickety. When he picked me up in his rusty dodge dart, the first thing I did was look in the back seat at the sleeping bag. Without sniffing it, I wouldn’t know if it was clean or dirty, because camo print does just that. Camouflage. “It will have to do.” I thought and then I gave him the address. 2345 Vineyard Way. He slapped the steering wheel so hard with both hands, I thought he would break it, and spit, “Girl, you be heading over to the hoity toity side of town!” I wasn’t sure what that meant but figured it out when we pulled up to what looked like Gracie Mansion.

I hugged Uncle Ray good-bye and he said with a grin, “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning at ten. Enjoy yourself! And try to take home some leftovers for me!” I gave him a love punch in the arm before I apprehensively left his jalopy, noticing the musty smell of the sleeping bag as I placed it under my left arm. “It will do.” I thought.

For a minute, I thought I had arrived at a costume party, because the woman that answered the door was in a maid’s outfit, quickly noting the nature of her dress was occupational. Hoping the whole evening wouldn’t be filled with similar faux pas, I followed the maid’s direction. She said, “Come with me,” so I could put down my things. I obeyed. How does one act when in a palace? Maybe it wasn’t exactly a palace, but it was by far more palatial than any home I had been in. The stolen Aquamarine was burning a hole in my backpack. I couldn’t wait to give it to Andrea. Rosario asked me if I had brought a gift and if she would like me to put it with the others. “Sure,” I said, briefly considering although the pinched Aquamarine was meaningful to me, perhaps it wouldn’t be to Andrea. If I was going to steal, why didn’t I at least pinch a Timex? “It will have to do. She’ll love it….I hope….”

Walking the echo filled endless halls two steps behind Rosario, something began nagging at my sensibility, biting me, telling me that being me in this big house was like trying to fit a jigsaw piece into a word puzzle, so when I finally got to Andrea, I automatically morphed into a cuttlefish, absorbing the environment as if I belonged. My sleeping bag and clothes might not have been an exact match, but what was in them had to be. I was good at that game, having done it many times before. So I thought.

It was all going okay. I was passing. We played music and danced, talked about boys, played twister, ate food that Uncle Ray would have drooled over, and ate seven layer cake in sync, so I thought. Andrea said she was going to open up the presents. After the second or third unveiling I wanted to dissolve myself in the hot cocoa I was drinking. The other gifts were not $5 gifts. What was I thinking? None of the girls were on my school bus. They were all from the other side. There was nowhere for me to hide when she was opening my gift. “Thanks,” she said with lackluster when she opened it, tossing it with the other gifts like she was discarding a used kotex, and I heard random giggles. Maybe they were laughing at something else?

When it was time to get ready for bed, I went into the bathroom to change. Apparently walls can still be thin in expensive houses. This is what I heard. “I’m not sleeping next to her. I think she has cooties.” “Nice sleeping bag. Is it from WW1?” “Why did you invite her anyway?” “I really don’t know. She was nice to me in math and now I wish I hadn’t. My mother will kill me if I get cooties.” “Only the poor girls wear Aquamarine!” And then they all laughed and I knew I couldn’t climb out of the window without jumping to my death and I knew my Uncle Ray would be out at Shuckers Grill, drunk as a skunk, on the other side, so I couldn’t call him, so I broke up their laughter, busting back into the room with my very own freakish laughter, drowning them out, and I took a little pleasure in seeing a half dozen pubescents’ anxious eyes looking back at me. Then I lied, “I’m kinda tired,” and I laid down upon the camo and pretended to sleep until they were all asleep. When I was sure they were, I snuck over to the present pile and tucked the Aquamarine under my jammies and then into my backpack.

Uncle Ray was there at 10 am to pick me up, hungover. “How was it Kitten?”

“Don’t ask.” I said. “Uncle Ray?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you do me one more favor?”

“Sure Kitten.”

“Can you pass by Lee’s Drug Store on the way home.”

“Sure. You sick?”

“Nah.”

“What then?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Okay kitten.” And he didn’t and he waited out in front of Lee’s. When I got back in his car, my backpack was lighter and so was my heart.

“So please just tell me something, anything about the party. I’ve never been inside one of those McMansions. The food. How was the food.”

“It was good Uncle Ray. It was real good, but not as good as you may think. In fact I think Meemaw’s food is even better.”

“You don’t say.”

“Say.”

When your clock goes tick

mine goes tock

and the shopkeeper sighs

cause you and i

do not chime right

covered in dust

the broken pieces

who learned how to fall

before we ever flew

covered in dust

mysteries mistress entrusts

the crack ups we hold

in secret

as the shopkeeper sighs

you go tick

and i go tock

we would never change

our lives as one broken clock.

The leaves don’t stop falling. I watch as another one finally gives out and relinquishes its hold on the twig, swaying in the gentle breeze to land atop a pile of its own kin of umber foliage. Somewhere in this huge hospital, the same fate must have befallen one of us. I imagine the woman’s family and friends to be carrying on with their usual business in another country, oblivious to her suffering while she lies motionless on the stiff bed, her mind grasping desperately at the dissolving clouds of memories as her sense of self-awareness gradually slips into a perpetual slumber.

What a pathetic end. An end that has already claimed so many lives. An end that might target me next.

I would’ve shuddered at the horrifying thought had my body been functioning normally. The chemicals flowing in my veins have a strong immobilizing effect, rendering me paralyzed unless I’m fed orders through a computer program to move. We’re merely human marionettes in the physicians’ eyes. Once we succumb to their mind control, they’ll send us back home to wreak havoc on our own people.

Five women used to share the same room with me. We lived through the cool summer in our beds, mostly chatting about our lives and encouraging one another to persevere through the ordeal. We witnessed fall, a season that didn’t exist in our country, for the first time in our lives. And just like the season, we began to fall, the ties of our friendship slowly being severed by the effects of the chemicals. One by one, the women lost their faith, then their memories and finally, their identities. Sometimes I wonder if it’s easier to let go, instead of having to battle it out by myself. But then I remember my family, my fiancè and everyone who's important to me. I don't have a choice.

I can’t hear the wind picking up, but I can tell by the crinkly red and gold leaves dancing past the window. I observe the almost bare sweetgum opposite the road to the hospital losing more and more leaves as the wind continues its relentless assault. Just as I think the tree will be bare for good, a lone amber leaf on one of the twigs defies my expectations. It manages to cling on for dear life and survive the attack.

A knock on the door makes me shift my attention to the physician. He walks towards me with an intimidating syringe in hand and a kind smile that doesn't reach his eyes. There's a hint of impatience in his honeyed voice when he says he wishes for me to be more obedient and make things easier for him. In the next moment, he's jabbed the needle painfully into my arm crease and injected a blue liquid into my veins. Tears well up in my eyes. I can't scream nor move.

I can only hope that I emulate that leaf.