HORRIFIC CONFECTION by Juliet Cook - BlazeVOX
HORRIFIC CONFECTION by Juliet Cook - BlazeVOX
HORRIFIC CONFECTION by Juliet Cook - BlazeVOX
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Pink Bird<br />
It’s hard for me to clip the creepy/yummy spin–<br />
poisonous frosting seeping out from under fingernails.<br />
I trim the crusts then wish to shellack them blue-black;<br />
hone them into shiny daggers, spiked nonpareils<br />
because I don’t want my hands to look like the hands<br />
of a child. I don’t want to show them my disheveled cuticle,<br />
scratched knee caps, the woeful way I really look<br />
like a wide-eyed paint-<strong>by</strong>-number girl, trying to pose<br />
as an adult. I’m wearing strappy, unsensible shoes.<br />
I’m thinking, “They’re Saying Mean Things About You”.<br />
Shame sublimates into inappropriate giggles;<br />
guilt sublimates into twisted approximations of insouciance.<br />
I curve my own lips. I’d rather look coy<br />
than cry while I whelp another misfit litter.<br />
This litter would consist of three patchy gray kittens<br />
with tongues like desolate pink tendrils,<br />
mewling from beneath a dilapidated back porch,<br />
thinking, “Nobody Likes You Here”.<br />
I would gather the raggedy strays. Wield a misplaced bray<br />
to crush the whimpers. Paint blue-black shellack over my shame<br />
until I collapse into a messy muculent mass of something<br />
that looks like red algae. Red algae doesn’t purr.<br />
Red algae doesn’t scrabble up my arms, towards<br />
my lips. Red algae just sits there cold and limp.<br />
Decapitated. Red algae doesn’t make a good paper weight.<br />
“I’m Sorry I Killed You”.<br />
Because I don’t want my hands to look like the hands<br />
of a perverted pastry chef, I’m sorry I used the gray fur<br />
to line my black cherry tart. Maybe if they took a bigger bite,<br />
they’d find out how soft it is inside. As my pages fly<br />
loose, flaky, scattered haphazardly in a magpie’s nest.<br />
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