Hydra-headed faces, I am scared of your
innumerable tentacles, bad luck and gypsy blood.
I know what I must do, a Herculean task, and
hack the sword to kill you. Now one head lopped off,
two grows in its place; death strengthens your resolve.
Banish the hydra-headed bitch!
Relapsing, I am cracking, bloodied by the vice of axes who
own me. Place the mad monster's neck beneath a guillotine;
the final head must be chopped where fierce emotion moves
me not. Hack the Hydra, master vampire and slayer, whose
bones bury you in an unexpected grave. In the reeking soil he'll
die beneath a rock, memories heavy as the stone.
Now frozen and faint, my face is my own, pierced by knives.
On a cold day that carries its dead, this mouth is trapped
in a cage of frantic butterflies; all wants and desires set free.
Asking nothing of life, anesthetized, the still place is the black
hearse of Lethe. Buddha smiles upon the dead bell, God's swastika
is featureless and dull, barbed wire hands burn with great concern.
A whiff of fear: is it over, have we come this far? Breathless
engines are paralyzed by the screech of departure echoing at
destination's end. I cannot walk too petrified to pick off the worms,
pills that kill the long hiss of pain. Writhing and grateful but too dull to
think, the aborted heads end by one death, guiltless in my little fist, wordless
and forgetful; shrunken voices on no one's side, swallowing sickness.
A counterfeit darkness has no mind, embalmed in a photo eyeing
my scars. I keep watch over this vile creature whose shameful
smile terror and disgust has stigmatized.
Copyright © 2007, Alexis Child. All Rights Reserved.
Published June 2007
Sinister Tales Magazine 2.2
&
Reprinted in April 2008
Cherry Bleeds Zine
Featured in the Summer Edition 2015,
Black Petals #72
All material is copyright. It may not be stored, displayed, published,
reproduced, or used for any other purpose without permission of the Author.