Anna Writes Online

Blood and guts are here

Blood and guts are there

Blood and guts are inside me

Blood and guts are on a screen

Glittering red pixels followed by screams

Blood and guts are down on the corner

Blood and guts are knocking at my door

Blood and guts are thousands of miles away

Spreading down a coast

Piling up like so many skyscrapers

Blood and guts seep in the soil

spread across the land

Poison crops and minds

Blood and guts travels across the sea to a wall made of

Wood

Stone

Metal

Blood and guts seeps through the cracks between the atoms

Get to the other side

Blood and guts don’t stop

Nest made of crisscross wire

Rolls through a

Sea of concrete

An inhospitable home for this damned creature

Garbage, refuse, and gasoline

Fuels the seagull in the Walmart parking lot

A beast of flesh in a cacophony of screeching metal

It calls back with its own song

Lost in the bustling of human and machine

Inhale deeply through your nose

The air you fool

Not some delicious white powder that makes it all better

The air given to us by god

And man

You know man

He sits on a throne as high as he can

As high as god will allow

They have an agreement

God and man

To make the air just so

Crisp fall air

That’s what could fill your nostrils

Filled with the spice of dying things

A cycle of life and death

Dance partners intertwined

God gave us that

Shit cuts through it all

Acrid smoke rises from a car’s exhaust pipe

Soapy steam pools out of a laundromat

A perfumed woman walks past

Drawing your attention up to her long neck and down her body again

But through it all the shit and filth are ever present

Man gave us that

You’ve been sick for years

Your sinuses clogged

Forced to breath through your mouth

Tasting the vestiges of gods gifts

And man’s creations

So

Inhale deeply

Know what it means to breath

In and out

blows in with the heavy winds

Cold air fell under the hot memories

They rise to greet me

wrap themselves around me

Then dance away

Leaving my nose colder

My heart heavy

My lovers don’t come back for more

There’s no drunk texts

No last hurrahs

No showing up years later banging down my door

When I burn a bridge I burn the ashes

I scour the remains for any loose stones

Then I chuck them in the river

They sink to the bottom

Where the current can’t reach

Can’t pick it up in its waves

To maybe one day find its way back to shore

The stones sit in the sediment and become one with the riverbed

I know what I’ll do!

I’ll eat rocks!

I’ll develop that peeka or pica disorder

The one where you crave inanimate objects or whatever

Y’know I’ve tried eating rock candy but

It doesn’t leave me with broken teeth and deep wounds all the way down my throat

You see

I need my insides to match

My internal worlds

‘Cause my teeth are actually in almost perfect condition and

My organs are all properly functioning

Even my brain

Lacks a tell tale tumor or

A scary red spot on a cat scan but

I kissed the corner of her mouth 

Quickly, roughly

I have inherited a conversational tic that I will not contribute to any particular relative here to maintain propriety and protect my loved ones from their shame. 

You have hot hands

They’re sizzling

Almost smoking

I was about to ask if they were on fire 'cause 

They emit a slight orange glow

Think electric rather than gas stove

It caught my attention

Distracted me from your engaging story

Please start again 

Blood oozes and drips and spills

Blood does not wait

Patiently 

At the precipice 

Peering out at the world

Blood spurts and sprays and drains

She kissed the mirror and finally understood narcissus

She wept, knowing she’d never know the feeling of her own lips

She’d have to settle for the cold reflection 

Glass too easily shattered by a lover’s passion

I began gnawing on the corners

Rounding the edges with my tongue and teeth

Preparing the space 

For a soft head

At knee height 

Perfect for slamming into sharp furniture

Would it be enough?

Would the world know to spare her?

To leave her be?

Protected in my grasp. 

You leave a residue in my mouth

A flavor that’s beyond taste

A feeling rests on the back of my tongue

Or maybe a tiger

Crouched and ready

To leap out of my mouth 

More like a candy I eat at the movies

Sweet enough that I let it sit there and dissolve

By the end, the flavor coats everything

From my esophagus to my lips

A flavor that keeps me coming back for more

I avoid the soda and the popcorn in favor of this feeling

An anticipation of the next time I get to have you there

In my mouth