These are both pretty old but I still like them!
A Catalogue of Errors
I wake up in the morgue again.
The clean chill of the place
has knocked the summer right out of me
and I slip away shaking,
gut aching, re-tracing my steps.
I’m a bad drinker.
The stuff slows my brain
but quickens my bones, I wake
a hundred muddy miles from home
on a good morning.
I’m a bad scientist.
Treat my chemicals like paints,
my subjects like a tyrant.
I forget to feed my cell cultures.
I blow my nose in the cleanrooms.
I’m a bad mother.
Granted, there’s no other kind
these days, but it’s hard to explain
how I’ve forgotten every baby I had.
I get lost, I think, in my own work,
my own waste of time,
the way my brain likes to eat itself.
I’ve eaten so many mistakes.
Blue powders, the wrong organs of fish,
Snow White red apples
and berries that leave me for dead.
The needing to know
never stops.
Still,
the September dawn oozes
its light over everyone.
Bad drinkers.
Bad scientists.
Bad mothers.
Good morning.
Three at Midnight
It’s midnight, and I’m out looking for people to save. Some loose-limbed youngblood, drowsy with the promise of sleep. Poor girl danced herself dizzy and walks home alone. That brief, in-between age when she doesn’t belong to anyone. The night is as full of monsters as it ever was, but I stretch and stamp and ready my weapons. She doesn’t have to find out.
It’s midnight, and I’m out looking for victims. A hard heartbeat, truthful under the false promise of red lipstick. She knows her flesh is marshmallow-soft. She dyes her hair to disguise the colour of rabbits, sparrows, small things that get swooped on and scooped up and eaten. I bare my teeth. It’s a cold night, and her skin will be like ice-cream.
It’s midnight, and I’m out looking for trouble. I walk with a teasing stumble, every few steps. I sing softly, faking courage, faking a need for it. My blood bubbles with delight. I am a plain, restless, unimportant thing. But tonight I will make gods fight over my fate.
I hope you enjoyed these. If you did, you might be interested in The Problem with Magic Shows.
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