David Arroyo
Crying in the shower,
white steam, the PTSD, the hot spout
like a chorus of needy babies. Belle,
your need broke me. A red jolt
passed through my fingers. The only hot flash
a beast can have.
I backhanded you.
I got grim. Swallowed
you head first, then I swallowed the pets. I
dined on the furniture. Candelabra waxing
woe from my chin down
to my throat, hot, then hard.
No fairy godmothers for me,
just a substitute Dairy Queen.
Waited
at the door for the Big Bads to come back
–they promised they would.
I became their student.
I learned to kill, to crush, to eat children raw.
With you still heavy in my belly like a stack
of bone meal pancakes.
It happened in the mind’s red-soaked eye,
but my hand twitched. Under the white smile
of the full moon I ran for the forest
soaped with our rape, our fever, our endless
Fairytale. My canines long with
a thirst for battered wife.
***
David Arroyo is a nerd and ex-catholic. His Dungeons & Dragons alignment is Neutral Good. He holds an MA in English from Florida State University and a MFA in Creative Writing from Stonecoast. He’s been published in Stirring, Silver Blade, and Burning Word.