(After the X-Files)
E. Kristin Anderson
There’s no such thing as safety even in a quiet town— just count
the monsters you have known the ones who slip by in shadows because we
would rather pretend that monsters belong to big cities. To other towns
far from here. We cover the grotesque with fresh soil pound it down
under our feet leave safeguards at home because any real armor means
we have a reason to be afraid to stay afraid everywhere. In a dry field
Scully witnesses the animal and the human through binoculars. Surely
the grass scratches at her ankles. And while it’s animal to defend a territory
it’s human to use tools— to enhance violence with violence. This is
a landscape of our most vulgar instincts. There is nothing supernatural here
and even the pigs will mutiny. Scully’s flashlight is an indelicate dawn in this
house that creaks at every whisper and every step holds disaster in the brutality
we call tradition. The brutality of genetics. Of every lie we pass down
as kindness or comfort. And I assure you: Stay in a place so long
that you know where all the cracks are and you’ll eventually jump into one
and ache there forever. We build new homes with or without children
with or without song. There is no such thing as safe. I’ll follow Scully into
her childlessness back to the city where there are too many cracks to count.
***
E. Kristin Anderson is a poet and glitter enthusiast living mostly at a Starbucks somewhere in Austin, Texas. A Connecticut College alumna with a B.A. in classical studies, Kristin’s work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including The Texas Review, The Pinch, Barrelhouse Online, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and FreezeRay Poetry. She is the editor of Come as You Are, an anthology of writing on 90s pop culture (Anomalous Press) and is the author of nine chapbooks of poetry including Pray Pray Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night (Porkbelly Press), Fire in the Sky (Grey Book Press), 17 seventeen XVII (Grey Book Press), and Behind, All You’ve Got (Semiperfect Press, forthcoming). Kristin is an assistant poetry editor at The Boiler and an editorial assistant at Sugared Water. Once upon a time she worked the night shift at The New Yorker. Find her online at EKristinAnderson.com and on twitter at @ek_anderson.