#raw ink

A resounding no. She greets the carvings in the table. Her fingers trace the initials of some past, love-drunk crush; she wonders if T + G are all right.

The end of whatever she held onto liquefies. She thinks it is outside in the soil somewhere, nourishing hungry roots below.

She is bare; moth-eaten. Her open minded eyes stare at the lines on the ceiling. The ‘no’ isn’t spoken aloud but she feels it complete her.

Gasoline fills a cold, empty tank. Hurt and past anger no longer seeps into her pages.

Thoughts no longer bear another person’s insecurities and responsibilities. Her mind breathes in fresh feelings and new opportunities, a frightening development after so long in the dark.

She thumbs a carving of an unfinished manta ray. It has no eyes, no stinger; its open mouth is ready to eat the school of minnows ahead of it.

Start with a smile. Work your way up via conversation and praise. Bombard the target until they need your words like air.

Invite them to events they are already invited to. Smile; remember to add sweetener to your sentences. Slip into their shadow; devour until you take on their shape. Digest slowly, among mutual friends.

Pretend you have always worn that outfit, their name. Shift tactic when the target starts to see through the ruse. Defend yourself by turning the tables

against them; use silence when the target finds flaws. Use words to cut and wound if silence does not sting. Discard when you have gotten the ultimate persona. Recycle techniques with a bright, ripe soul.

www.instagram.com/nasty_franky

My mother’s dragon was lowered into the ground. His fangs were sewn shut, his coal eyes closed. Wrinkles accentuate the scales on his arms, his neck; on his hands underneath suit sleeves.

She wasn’t present when they put him down. Nonbelievers sprinkled last respects. Family pretended not to see the tail and claws. My sister and I saw beetles crawl out his ears, bat wings tucked underneath his collar. Grandma called us clean because we could see all of him. She pursed her lips and ignored their judgments. She could see him too.

Later that night, after frights were laid to rest, we asked who he was. Mother shook her head and served us dinner.

The brigade nipping at her heels blasts back with signs of their own.

They show her cuts made with magic marker, wave away hers made with tears, with Tasers. They tell her about the way law rubs lawns raw with sharp blades of grass. She tells them about overgrown hell in her yard, killing every blossom she tries to plant and nurture.

Lizard eyes and a sharp tongue accused me of stealing dollars from the sand. The only thought that filtered through was the time I brought a new friend to the shore, and told him not to move from man-made shade.

     I got to work digging trenches      and building mountains around it;      created a home with an eroding window,      a seashell fence, and a door-less entry.

     I removed the makeshift tent and saw him limp;      body stretched against cool sand.      His head near the entrance to my invention, crushed;      one eye was glass, the other green.

     And I cried.      I sat on my haunches and wrapped him in my shirt,      dug a deep hole, and placed him home.      Cried when I covered him up and made a castle in his name.