Fifteen Minutes
by

Why am I always tired whenever I have to do this?
He felt around his pockets for some change.
The friendly glow of the vending machine beckoned him.
Yes, this was a party he had an invitation to, unlike the ones he attended the week prior.
Why am I always upset whenever I have to do this?
He jabbed his thumb into the change slot of the payphone.
Empty just like that old man at the bus stop assured me it would be.
I hate him now.
I held no ill will towards the elderly but all that is changed.
The old man nodded off waiting for the bus.
A hand slapped the potential bus passenger upside his head, knocking his hat to the curb where it received a large spray of urine from a passing dog.
Sighing, the old man said, "I should get another hat."
Another hard slap across his head.
The old man got up from the bench, unzipped his pants and let loose a yellow stream on his ruined cap.
"You have to let them know you've been there."

crime

pyro-
a tower of loosed embers
soot across his lower lip
and the sound of sirens
pulling close
a lullaby of noise and faint light faeries
pixelated through the tears.
for five more minutes, we were just kids.

like porcelain.
her little head stuffed into pillows
every sinew alive with tension.
back arched like a fire
was roasting her underside.
she was on fire and the hands bound behind her,
crackling like the fire was hotter
than love
and trust,
reminded me that she loved me. despite the moans,
and then the silence.

feather-light
the trigger, which i expected to be hot,
wasn't.
wasn't heavy either, just as light as the
paper-weight pleas for mercy, invoking
godbuddhavishnusatan.
there's no fancy speech nor god-headed righteousness
really
just feather-light. just easy enough to pull.

the process of absolution in detail.
eventually
the fists becomes the act
and the act becomes the sensation.
if the fists don't sigh and shudder,
burn brittle and break, raw and exposed
nakedly feebled to the skin torn away and
the weakness of a pause and if she doesn't cry out
beneath the weight of her sins and the crosses
you give her to bear; then sensation becomes numbness
eventually.