why flannery

dethrone the king he calls let us cook him raw over a spit use his bones to pick our teeth eschew civility for a chance at everlasting justice we will cat call to the moon conjoined twins switched at birth with fairy elves is that blood or strawberry syrup you can lick it off your fingers anyway call the clergy it's time to pray to an absentee god who has never loved us they say he rules from heaven but i found grace only within the beams of the impending headlights and the bottom of a well

sometimes it makes me ill just to think about how close i came to being icarus did you know that when i was a child my father brought me home a book of illustrated greek myths it was paperback and the cover was black and i hid it in the bottom of my bookshelf because the stories were too sad i couldn't read the one where daudalus cries into the ocean as he holds his son's broken body but sometimes i would flip through it just to feel the bite 

i first fell in love with death when markus zusak introduced us in seventh grade with a flick of his thin fingers he beckoned me closer and i obliged pressing my palms reeking of formaldehyde into his as if he already knew i was trying to preserve something long gone gathering rusty pins sharp as his wit, as his tongue careful not to let them prick any more than the black wax scrubbed raw of skin until my knuckles bled so dry though all i did was water them with tears five hearts in the earthworm and i remove them all cut so clean, so quick they say i'm a natural with dissection death puts his charcol hands down over mine just to guide them as i shake "patience" he murmers "practice" he says "soon you will see all there is is a fine line between the living and the dead"