Work Text:
Cold Blood
For Chamberlain.
For weeks later the newspapers would broadcast
The charred vestige, the burnt-out corpse of high-school carnival
Teenage telekinetic murderer –
Impetuous, bursting headlines –
Mass murder in cold blood –
A tragedy that leaves the streets ravaged, frenzied –
Psychic. Tragedy. Youths murdered in cold blood.
They wait, they sweep the ashes. Soon.
But here, in the light on the stroke of midnight,
The street is a half-damp mirage
And she is alone
With the muffled drum of the creaking wood
and floorboards, in this ghost house
Her exoskeleton crumbling and give out, leaving naked bone
Her dress is soaked through – burgundy, scarlet, maroon – so she sheds it
A snake shedding its final skin.
No fairy godmother for this ugly girl.
No glass slipper for the monster.
(Mass murder in cold blood.)
The newspapers yet to come, they do not know
of the nights in bed, whispering prayers
against the darkness, fists drummed against wooden planks
of the closet, shuddering – breathe – the terror
Of crucified eyes on the wall
They do not know of the scream, silenced, rattling like dice
in her quivering veins like a candle
smothered into fume, choking her lungs.
A phantom all her life, a premonished haunting.
Her skin – dull, dried rice paper,
crumbling snowflakes when touched – flinching;
bowed head and scuttling steps at the lockers, library, homeroom.
Drifting. Her throat, spasming, choked: as if they
had jammed an apple between her teeth
to shut her up in her pig’s mouth.
Her wrists, pink from pinching fingers, branching out to
pale joints, like roots of a young tree,
nimble, joining thimble to thread, working lithely.
Her eyes big, too much like water, brimming to
overflow, a hollow baptizing.
Her nose and forehead scattered with a constellation of
angry-red pimple spots, that charted
a nonsensical map of confusion, outlining a mystical
world, a dead-end maze, a forgotten alley.
None of this would they ever know.
They will say in cold blood but they would not know
of Mother’s hand, the brief caress
leaving flushed skin, almost
like love. There were different types of love.
Momma’s love. Jesus’s love.
She dreamed: of hallway laughter, inky stars, purple hearts.
The warmth of spotlights bearing down, centerstage, heavy warmth
Like the sun on her neck, blinding her eyes. Golden apples.
Love should be warm, like the blood throbbing in her chest,
Her temples, in the veins in her skin. Promised. Soon.
They will say in cold blood
But they do not see her now:
Mascara of red trails caked along her cheeks,
a huddled statue of marble-still worship.
Translucent pinkness of her skin bedding purple rivers
That ran beneath the surface, sparse veins, coursing.
Nothing more than a little girl,
That stubborn heart pulsing heat through purple shoots,
a final spasm of life. Tired.
Slow, warm blood leaking out from her side,
Gentle, like coming home. Soon.
They will say, oh they say in cold blood
But they have not known the crimson outpour
Warm, warm as slobber,
As it oozed down her thighs, mesmerized creeks running
down pillars of skin like an aberrant waterfall
Mingled with water as it pooled at her feet.
Her first time. Her last time.
Eve’s Temptation: a woman’s sin.
They will say in cold blood
But they would not know this town
Suburban streets flooded in florescent glow
Like little white rivers, running crisscross
Conjoining junctions, to pump blood
Into this mechanic heart:
Silent cars, and sleeping-faced houses.
This town with its streetlamps for eyes,
Neatly-mowed lawns for stubble, roofs for ears,
The hollow smile of a sidewalk mocking its lips.
It cares not for life
Nor the silent tears running like rivers
Tearing the seams of its parts. Its heart.
But what do they know?
What do they know of cold blood?
By morning come, they will be here, too.
They will want to print their story in bold.
Recorded in a single camera snapshot.
In the mere space of a blink. Soon.