i am fascinated with dying, and

i think i can do it more than once.

i don't trust that you are worth fear.

sometimes, you love me too easily.

i won't write about the apocalypse,

cry for nuclear stalemates, infanticide,

though i am still half-deaf

with all this ringing in my ears.

(and the sky is such an ugly thing.)

why don't we chase the horizon

and put the ocean from our minds?

there is no life i can imagine

without you lying by the radiator,

quietly rolling cigarettes

and memorising science fiction.

Well, okay, so:

Remember that time when

I said that I really didn't care

about, ya know, loving a boy or a girl?

Sorry for the confusion, grandma,

but I still don't care if it's a boy or a girl.

©SelfTitled, 2017

“Cross God one time, and you will be depicted forever as a bloodied goat man - but I’m the evil one.”

       She crossed and uncrossed her legs.

       Indeed, the young woman across from me was not unpleasant to look at. She was plain looking, mousy even.

       If I had been told that the devil were a woman, my mind would have filled with a vision of a Delilah temptress, forked tongue slipping in my ear while I quivered with waning resistance.

       Alas - no swirling smoke, no hopping henchmen. Dressed in crimson satin, a woman devil of my imagination would convince me to do vile things with whimsy.

       The woman across from me was buttoned down, no cleavage or flitting eyelashes. She looks like a mom. I try to keep my suspicion, any fool could guess that this was naught but a trick. Blue blouse and khakis did not an innocent make.

“Oh, this isn’t my normal form, this is a rental especially for you.”

       A wink, there it was - the trickster was out to play. Ignoring that Lucifer was reading my unexpressed thoughts - I was filled with disgust. This woman possessed, to be used and discarded like some puppet.

“Don’t you recognize me?”

       Staccato laughter burst from her, drawing the attention of the tables around us. It was that laugh that began the chill, which poured over my skin like oil.

“This is my fault, I tend to indulge in theatrics.”

       She began to change. Sallow shrinking greying meat - half of her face ripped up with a violence, showing bloodless flesh - she laughed again, the laughter strange sounding from behind flapping skin. It was then that I saw the tire marks, which crawled up across her chest before me.

“Remember me now?”

       I had tried to forget. Spread on pavement in the dark - I hadn’t gotten a good look. Besides, I had been very drunk.