and blush to match,
her skin dictating her choice.
Or had she no choice at all?
Hands
trembled,
fumbled,
earthquakes.
He walks in,
demands.
She answers, pleads,
hands
trembling,
fumbling,
poised to absorb—
or try.
In minutes,
or hours, or days,
or weeks, or months—
time is meaningless—
he walks away, leaving in his wake
just a cutting name
and a promise.
The night air is
crisp,
icy-cool,
an unlikely friend, warm.
She walks, head down,
watching her feet through
shaded
reality,
going nowhere.
Anywhere.
She glanced at
a stranger, as strangers do.
She glimpsed wisps of sky,
the deep dark,
the stars,
and still prayed
for rain,
to justify the rolling diamonds.
Nature and silence
swallowed cement
and brick,
lights and noise,
fear.
And so
she walked,
head high, eyes
now bright,
open.
On and on,
her footfalls echoing,
softly,
a quiet army, off to fight
for freedom.
And then he was there,
he was always there,
following,
just out of sight.
Somehow she knew,
sensed it.
And so
she ran,
soldiers in full retreat.
4th, 5th, 6th,
she ran toward the light,
alone, bright, inviting,
safe.
Headlights followed,
distant,
but so close.
So close.
Four steps in two,
she pounded on the door,
red paint peeling, flaking,
like flecks of blood
on the side of her fist.
Headlights closer.
It was too late.
The door begins to open,
she spins away,
to face her fear.
The headlights, the car,
a boy, a stranger,
gripping the wheel,
focused ahead.
She laughs,
at herself,
the night,
the sky,
the deep dark,
the stars,
the stars,
so many stars...
Thoughts: This poem was written for a very specific anthology called Death in Common. The premise was simple: a quiet old man commits suicide, and after his death, down in his basement, cops find corpses, all with pieces of paper shoved into their mouths. On each piece of paper there was writing.
From the description:
MONMOUTHSIDE HEIGHTS --- The Monmouthside Township Police Department executed a search warrant two days ago on Charles Lee Eaton's home on 6 th Avenue. Working on neighbors' complaints of a week-long terrible smell, the police found Eaton, age 62, dead from an apparent suicide-by-hanging. No explanatory note was found, and Eaton had no relatives or friends.
"We hardly ever saw him," stated Adara Al-Muhsi, a neighbor. "He largely kept to himself. My kids were always frightened of him. He once spat at my daughter for trying to sell him Girl Scout cookies."
The sentiment was largely echoed by other people on 6 th Avenue. What police found in Eaton's home, however, provided a shock. Bodies, in various states of decomposition, were tangled in his basement. There seemed to be no unifying demographic, in terms of age, gender, or ethnicity. For a serial killer, this is not normal behavior, according to Dr. Anthony DeLucci, adjunct criminal justice professor at Monmouth University. "Your average serial killer has specific tastes. It's part of a fetish. It's systematic. It's almost ritualistic. Charles Lee Eaton demonstrated none of that."
Eaton's erratic killing also came as a surprise to the Monmouthside Township Police. Detective Lattrell J. Johnson stated that, "Identification of the remains is ongoing. We cannot release names, but so far, none of the victims so far identified have been reported missing. They could be locals. They could be tourists. We don't exactly know.."
Further details are not available as of this writing. One source, close to the consulting forensic team brought in, did speak on the condition of anonymity. "I have been part of murder investigations for 15 years. I've never seen anything like this. There's no logic, at all. Only one thing comes close to fitting the established profile. Each of the victims had wadded up sheets of paper stuffed into their mouths. These contained writing, but the similarities end there. Each had a different set of handwriting. Some were typed, and others printed out. Some were written in the first person, while others seemed to tell stories about other people. We're still trying to find a pattern."
Detective Johnson asks that anybody with any information, whether on Charles Lee Eaton or somebody who has recently gone missing, contact the Monmouthside Police's Charles Lee Eaton Special Task Force.
The poems included were to focus on the "most unconventional" victims. So I gave it a go, and was promptly rejected. Since it is such a specific poem—about a woman attempting to flee an abusive relationship, only to seek help at the wrong house—and will likely never find a home elsewhere, I have posted it here.
Which is fine, because I sort of dig it.
