Hawthorne weapon, slipped in celiac and shirked

from stuffing. Given orders, silent room, officious,

no warhorns blowing, no markings on its skin, no

chorus and ceremony to dedicate

its arrival to the lineage of its kin.



A person is a knife, if you’ll believe it, and you would

if you saw it flick between ribs, cinch the arteries,

caress the blood vessels, canter and flex and

pulverize muscle fibers.



It’s sordid and trite, I know. And if you look upon

my face, the smile grows. I’m alive and it isn’t,

storms and minnows, holy atrophy a chance to

grace the sword with stone. Look at it, how it

squirms and wriggles. A perfect tableau for my

inhuman throes, wild-eyed, crazed, seized in

murderous ecstacy. A sacrifice to satiate my

sacreligious blade. A lamb, a fawn, warm

beating heart. It is mine for

the slaughter.



Stand up straight, pull back the hair, heave the mats,

the chest and its yaw, look at it straight. Feel its hardness,

its shame. A sword, built for killing, fashioned in sadism

and hate. A means of punishment,

of release.

A product of dire straits, a sobbing

heap of strength. It tears and it maims.

It tastes the flesh and bites. It hides

its face.

A girl, a boy, a knife, a sword,

a horrible thing, a wanting.

a monster that feasts. Brought to heel

under steel. Collapsed into rage

and heat. Arched over your supine

form, wet, drooling, leaking tears

and fluid. Licking and laving, ravishing

with hot putrid breath.



And it knows, it feels the supple

beat of pulsing light, it knows the sweet

divinity of life, it knows the heights of

carnal nerve, and it knows

that a sword

turns bodies

into corpses.





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