I killed you…

I killed you in a dark mind

You’ll find,

not thinkin’ ‘bout you at all

Now you’ll never know

With gauze over my eyes

And sharpened claws over those

And clothes that needed washing

After constant blunt forced blows.

(It shows) I fucking said it shows

That love and lust are doors so closed

So much skin exposed

To the frigid cold and snows

While body starts to decompose

 

Under my microscope, you’re naked

Shaking, shaken down, organs pronounced

Liver spotted, lungs in jars in fluids drowning, drowned.

 

Who’s relief? when movement stops

Clitter clatter, the tool just drops

Because the song is over here.

But its clear I: Siiiing thiiiis soooong.

It’s been so long since the pound on the drums

And mother’s hymns and hums

Scared away the ghosts and phantoms

 

Thunder pounds in the ears,

hunger eating away at the fears

Humor found in those tears

And if you have the capacity, the gift,

You’ll find a deficit of human cares.

Thunder pounds in the ears,

hunger eating away at the fears

Humor found in those tears

And if you have the capacity, the gift,

You’ll find a deficit of human cares.

 

Boo, motherfuckers, I’m fucking coming for you

Who over the millennia has warned? Given clues?

Monsters don’t creep in shadows under beds

They crawl like infections in your fellow classmate’s heads

Dread the moment they come out

Catharsis heaves in screams and shouts

Disease can come in bouts

We kill the plant before it sprouts

Down, down, make it bound,

We don’t really need that evil sound.

Ah, ah, ah ow.

Tender, tender, pull and touch.

You’re forcing flesh and love too much

I’m feeling lazy, Dreams becoming hazy

Your eyes are driving me crazy, baby.

Save me.

I love you, martyr, every bit

I’m your favorite hypocrite

I emit the very drugs you take

I omit the cries that make you wake

Wake, wake, wake wake

 

Thunder pounds in the ears,

hunger eating away at the fears

Humor found in those tears

And if you have the capacity, the gift,

 You’ll find a deficit of human cares.

 

Drooping eyes are tired

Pretty colors not admired.

Deep felt kisses, stars hardwired

Twitching hands left undesired.

Moonlight romance,

Dark side drug trance

Nerve ending wheezing jump dance

Not making any damn sense

Isn’t that so beautiful,

That I can be so wise a fool?

Live in the starless vacuum

In eternal cosmic bend

Why does it even matter if

Entropy will get us all in the end

 

If the edge of men’s blades

Carried the blood of their loving

Is the problem worth solving

Does it matter if humanity fades?

Does it count if I can’t feel it?

Does it count if I can steal it?

Does it count if nothin’ heals it?

Does it pay to fuckin’ seal it?

What if all of her Siberia

Was just another fear within’ ya?

Would it really fuckin’ kill ya

To fake the sunshine within ya?

 

In all of that raw power

I tell the mirror to better cower

Never come down from that tower.

 

Is it really better now?

Can the sun come first before the clouds?

And the beating hearts leap bounds

The brain no longer barking hounds

It’s been so long since the pound on the drums

And mother’s hymns and hums

Scared away the ghosts and phantoms

 

Thunder pounds in the ears,

hunger eating away at the fears

Humor found in those tears

And if you have the capacity, the gift,

You’ll find a deficit of human cares.

Thunder pounds in the ears,

hunger eating away at the fears

Humor found in those tears

And if you have the capacity, the gift,

You’ll find a deficit of human cares.

 

Eyes don’t really show emotion.

Viscous fluid ain’t communion

Bedside union isn’t tender

Nor is breaking off your gender

You’re already a walking pile

Walk a mile, break my smile

Make the balance for a while

Dress the suit up in the style

Of the cross just down the aisle

In the island of the living

Dying is a sign of giving

Trying has no merit and in

Frowns are worried trembling

Desire that never disappears

Here, satisfy our inner beast

Addiction to the quiet feast

It’s clear that you can never hide

You are no virgin, blushing bride

 

 

Thunder pounds in the ears,

hunger eating away at the fears

Humor found in those tears

And if you have the capacity, the gift,

 You’ll find a deficit of human cares.

Who cares? Who cares?

Who dares try to prove me wrong

You know it’s been this way all along. 

Heave

           A new house did not mean a new home. Settling into the floorboards and turning on the heat, I walked across the new space feeling relieved to be alone for the first time in my adult life. It was empty and cold, however, I saw potential for a cozy space that I could call my own. Nevermind that it was rented and a few strange spots and cracks oozed into your vision as your eyes scanned the room. Nevermind that. It was a place for me to finally escape from people and disappointment.

        A soft creaking accompanied my footsteps as I groaned with the old house. It was firmly planted in this charming town with its own lazy history and there was a lot of work to be done. I needed furnishings and a touch of my personality to fill the bare walls. The old dust had to be replaced with new dust. I thought briefly of inviting friends and family before realizing that they too had abandoned me when I needed them most. Then, I realized, indeed, who else could? No one was left to disappoint me except for me.

        Satisfied with the measurements of the space, I began my secret life as an interior decorator. I scanned stores for furniture and utensils to replace the ones I had left behind. I was starting fresh, I told myself. I was picturing clean sheets and a breeze when I felt a real breeze a little too cold than it should have been fluttering like fingertips across the nape of my neck. Compelled to turn towards the source of those cold fingers, my body twisted until I faced an open door. The front door to be exact. It stood ajar with a dark, unlit hallway stretching away in a pattern of old rugs and wallpaper. I closed this door.

           I closed all the doors. I vowed myself to make sure that all the doors were always shut and locked. No one was going to get in.

        Yet there was this sensation that someone had followed me into the room. I felt the grasp of a past life on my hand and strange sensation of heaving laughter in my stomach. It was like a bad high. I did not want to laugh but something was forcing my stomach to pressure in and out and forced sounds like yells out of my l ungs. I was howling in laughter with tears streaming out of my eyes. I doubled over with my arm stuck in a painful angle as if jammed between cogs. In what seemed like an infinite timespan, I heaved a deep breath of air, gasped alone facing the floor and stood up rubbing my arm which was now sore.

Had I lost my mind? Was the stress from the past month still driving me into a downward spiral? What I felt could only be produced by the memories of my previous life, I decided. There was someone else who I had once believed in as they slowly drew me in and suffocated me. I had felt cornered and trapped. Surely, this was just my brain reminding me that I had been poisoned. I had been sick, and now, I was taking care of myself. The only treatment I could see was solitude.

              I could not let anyone corrupt my soul like that again. I had to focus on the task on hand. I let time carry me forward. A few comfortable days singing out loud without shame and finally assembling a bed to sleep in put me in ease. I refused to check the news or watch a film, but I was able to begin a few books I had meant to read for years. I flipped through the pages, relishing the smell and the way the light caught the pages and melted into the creases. I was in love almost romantically with the print and texture. I reread my favorite passages and folded the corners and left spidery marks on the spine to show my appreciation. I always thought that a worn book was well-loved.

             At dusk, I let the darkness embrace me and hummed along with a small heater whirring into the longer nights and dropping temperatures. I woke in the mornings with a strange sensation that I was imposing on someone else’s property. I had taken my belongings, however sparse, and planted them on sacred ground. It was mismatched like beach chairs in an ice cave.

           The heater’s light was on. It was burning bright like an eye, watching me from its perch. Was it watching me?

           Yes, I am watching you.

        My eyes trailed across the ground following the chord to the outlet, uncoupled. I widened my eyes as if to take in more of the reality. A trick of the morning light through the window.

           Yes, a trick. A trick.

           The heater whirred continuously unaware that it should not even have the power to do so. The air it produced carried a heavy scent of salt and humidity. My room had become a swamp and the sheets damp and heavy and stale. It dragged me down with the weight of water on my chest and throat. I gurgled slightly as I tried to speak to it. I was trying to tell the heater that it should begin to heat again.

            Do your job, I thought.

            I am so good at my job, said the heater.

            I was drowning and the sheets were wrapping me closer. All the doors were open and the air seemed magnetic with me at the pole. I was crumbling inwards, imploding into my throat. My chin tucked in and my ribcage felt as if it was about to burst. My spine cracked slightly as it curved into a single point and my the nerves in my fingers tingled and sparked with confusion. Something was smiling at me. It seemed amused at my twisted figure in tangled sheets now deeply soaked in swamp water. My vision turned foggy or green or spotted until there was nothing left to see but a smile.

            All at once, the morning light and a quiet room enveloped me in a strange silence as I lay heaving once again in my bed. I felt feverish and nauseated. I rolled onto the floor and began to retch and heave. At first, only mucus and saliva emerged until a single slippery fish fell unceremoniously onto the floor. I began sobbing and heaving with all my might as a panic took over me and I continued to throw up a small frog, a sputter of water and algae. My fingers shaking, I touched the items to verify their existence. In an instant, my reality broke down around me as these very real creatures and the visceral experience became as true as the flesh on my bones. I felt my skin with my fingers, clammy and cold. I felt the clothing soaked on my body and my hair stuck to my face. Tears and salt began to dry on my face as it tightened and cracked and reddened.

           My circumstance was all too familiar.

        I woke up. It was hours, days or weeks later, but the sun was setting and the air glowed orange. The front door was open, and the hallway was dark. Sometimes there is a darkness that comes with nighttime or simply what occurs when your eyes are adjusting to a change of lighting. Sometimes there is a darkness that is a lack of a light source in a closed space. The darkness in the hallway was a void. It was a black hole. It sucked all matter into it. Without thinking, I walked towards the pitch black while aware it attracted specks of dust and sucked in the orange glow from the rest of the room.

        My breathing became shallow and uneven once again. As I came closer to the door, I found my wits and grabbed the handle, forcing the door shut.

           Damn.

        The pulling and sucking sensation immediately dissipated and my breathing returned to normal. As I took hold of my surroundings, I started realizing that these terrifying events were either a horrible, twisted working of my mind or a cruel, supernatural occurrence. I felt dizzy switching between my rational beliefs and tallying what had actually happened.

        It was time I decided to do something about it, however trifling.

When I was a child, I kept a journal. The intention was to make a daily account of my life, but I seemed to only return to it when I was in distress. This was no different. I took out a notepad and began scrawling down what I was experiencing.

        Several dog eared pages later, I stood up to shake out the tingling sensation of sitting on my leg in the wrong position. I stretched out my cramped hands and walked off the feeling of white noise up and down my thigh. I began to think about who I would share those notes with, but nobody came to mind.

           No one cares but me!

           No one cared but the smiling thing in my apartment. I did not let my friends and family touch me, but I let this creature get in so deep. All it ever did is hurt and terrorize me, and I had done nothing to address it. Should I speak to it?

        I called out into the empty room. Nothing happened.

        After a moment of feeling foolish, I decided to mark this down in my notepad. I returned to it to find that my writing had vanished and in its place the creature had written a note.

           I love you. Please don’t leave.

           Appalled, I began to heave once more, but this time it was a human panic. I felt the blood rush into my face and my temperature rise. The feeling of fight and flight rose up inside me, and the choice was clear. I packed a few belongings, stuffing them violently into a bag. Carelessly, I rushed to the front door and stepped into the hallway – a normal hallway with a slight smell of mildew and meals current and past neighbors have made. I walked out the door and finally left the apartment.

        There was nowhere for me to go. I had burned all the bridges and closed myself off from everyone. What was I trying to do in the first place? I was clearly stressed and overreacting. Feeling silly, I paced up and down the block thinking about my wild imagination. I decided that I decent meal and a good night’s sleep was in order, and with that, I returned to my apartment.

        It was still and ordinary, but I could not shake the fact that the space I had considered to be safe was really not. Or was it that my own thoughts were the ones that were no longer safe? I continued questioning myself as I prepared a meal and quietly ate it. As the hours dragged on, I found myself once more in my bed with my sheets around me. They were harmless, ordinary sheets.

        I closed my eyes expecting to see darkness but instead the room was still there as if my eyes were open. I could not look away. I closed my eyes again, feeling my eyelids shut but the view of the room was still there. Trembling, I ran to the front door once more. It was my only exit.

           Not true. There is another way.

           I stopped for a moment now calm. There is another way, I smiled. There is always another option and another void to be filled. I rushed to the window in the bedroom, opening it with a crack at first and then forcing the paint to separate. I leaned out, laughing. We laughed. There was one way that nothing would ever hurt me anymore. I would never hurt myself anymore. The air rushed in around me and goosebumps rose on my skin. The pages of my notepad fluttered and the sheets on my bed twisted like storms. My hands grasped the peeling paint as my fingernails dug into the wood. The deep darkness was calling me, sucking me into its grasp. I could not see the ground below, but I widened my eyes.

           Just another push.

        I heaved my body through the window and plummeted.

Kallisto, Most Beautiful

I was conceived, born and matured in one day. A young man named Andrii Andric willed me into existence as a final stand against his own greatest fear. Andrii was an obsessed poet and artist. He spent much of his free time creating mechanical creatures with pen and paper until thirst, hunger or duty overcame him. Duty was a last minute rush to the factory where he worked, assembled and daydreamed.

I daydreamed, too. I had thoughts that came into fruition almost as instantly as I grew. When the egg was fertilized, I felt triumph and hope. When my cells multiplied, I felt comfort and warmth as my body developed and shaped itself like clay. Then, I felt my synapses clutter up against each other and thirst. I felt emotions for the first time, new and simple to old and complicated. I felt, then saw, then understood, the watchful gaze of the djin whose sad eyes also felt a relief when gazing upon my form. The djin, also an artist, crafted my body’s components, my soul and all that we don’t understand to Andrii’s specifications. I was a complicated mechanical creature and I was bound to the laws of the world. My birth was not a screaming spectacle but a removal of protection. After, I began to age. My limbs stretched and shot outwards like a sprouting plant. I menstruated, grew breasts and began to comprehend the world. I learned about math and science and art. I knew where I was: the east. Andrii spoke softly to me. He promised me safety and hope in the west. Tears rolled down his face as I reached adulthood slowly and then stopped aging.

In the dead of the night, I stood nude in front of a djin and Andrii, who was left behind by his family in a hostile place.

Andrii turned to the djin and they shook hands.

“Thank you, friend.”

“We shall meet again,” says the djin then he is gone. Like a dream, our memories of the creature fade until we could not remember the details of his appearance. Only his sadness and relief lingered. Perhaps that was all he left for us to remember him by.

“Do you have a name?” asked Andrii.

I don’t.

“I have papers for you. Will you be able to use the name on them for now?”

“Yes,” I told him.

“The djin is free. Tonight, we will be free, too,” says Andrii. “’And even the whisper of the wind will not reach the ears of evil men-“

“-and reveal our hearts of truth and valor.”

“Yes,” Andrii smiled. “You are so beautiful. Just like I described.”

“Your imagination is my identity.” And Andrii’s smiled slipped until it rested on acceptance. His hand rested upon mine and I learn Andrii was not only terrified of being alone. I learn that he journeyed throughout world. I learned that he met an old Indian who gave him a dusty relic. I learned that the Soviets were searching for him and the secrets he carried.

In that night, we prepared and fled past the Berlin wall. Three faceless men helped us. On the other side, Andrii’s younger sister appeared to us.

“Who are you?” questioned the adolescent girl when she saw me.

I am nobody. I am human. I am-

“Here. Her papers are in order. She is my wife,” Andrii quickly hands his sister the documents.

“A wife, brother? Are you insane? You married a German slut?”

“Quiet your tongue. Do not say things, you will regret!”

“Or what? You will write me an angry poem?”

Andrii is silent. Then, he whispers, “Why did you leave me behind?”

“Does it matter? You are safe now.”

“It matters immensely. You are the only family I have.”

“Don’t be silly. You have her now.”

“I did not then. Tell me.”

His sister is small and fierce. Her face is young but her eyes have a long memory. She speaks slowly, “When they killed our mother and sent us her eyes, we protected you. When they beat our father without mercy then threw him to the dogs, we still hid you. When they raped me and cut my flesh, I held my tongue and my promise.”

Andrii looked at her with hard eyes. “I know the sacrifices.”

“You do not! You do not! They took Milos away from me! He was only a baby! He was my baby! I heard him scream, I heard him scream…”

“Milos? They killed Milos?”

“Grandfather was shot at the border.”

“No…”

“They grabbed me.”

“Sister…”

“And they told me I would die.”

“You didn’t…”

“Andrii, you doomed our family for a small copper trinket.”

I watched Andrii as his eyes widened.

“It is gone now,” he said.

The young woman looks at me and then at her brother.

“You wasted it all on selfishness. We spilled blood for you.”

The sister looks at me and slowly pulls out a knife. Andrii is slow and weak. He withered for a long time in a solitary attic with no companions. Her strong fingers grasped at my neck as she poised the weapon at my main artery. I felt fear for the first time. Tears stung my eyes and my chest convulsed.

“What were your wishes?”

Andrii closed his eyes and stretched out his hand towards me.

“First, was the disappearance of all atomic weapons in the world…. I made sure they were all gone, the blueprints, the bombs, even the…even the…”

“Even what?”

“Even the scientists who created them.”

We stared at him.

“I…wished for her. I felt so alone. I felt like I deserted my humanity and I needed to feel. And here she is. So beautiful, so beautiful.”

“Your last wish?”

“I set him free.”

“Why?”

“Because he set us all free from nuclear holocaust.”

“You could’ve brought our family back.”

“No…”

“Milos…”

“The rules…no resurrection, no love.”

“Milos, my baby…”

I felt her touch as I did Andrii’s. I felt my baby, Milos, tear through my womb. I felt the German soldiers tear my skin with serated knives. I felt my grandfather slap me when I tried to flee and sell out my brother.

“Milos, my baby…” I whispered.

I gurgled and fell to the ground as her knife slid into my throat. The forest around me wavered. I felt the dirt on the ground and wondered why I was created. I was confused at Andrii’s actions which were at once selfless and and selfish. A true contradiction. I wondered at my life and my death. I wondered why fate was so fickle and why love hurt so much.

“Milos…” Milos was gone. The scientists and their atomic bombs were gone. I lay on the ground and wished to no one in particular to be gone as well. My wish was granted.

Ingest In Jest (Sonnet)

A churning, turning act of eating,

The need of material for consumption,

All creatures worship love of feeding

To quench the thirst of satisfaction.

The fear of dire, quick starvation

Turns human to animal again and again.

Caloric need is just an equation,

The math that turns violent beast to man.

The mind sustains on nutritious energy.

An egg that is cracked without its strength

To soothe and provide for harmony

That a being goes for at any length.

Food is life if you are living.

We take all that the world is giving.

The Cherry Eater

My name is Sally Henderson, and I am here to tell you that George Washington can indeed tell a lie. He is not even the George Washington that history remembers for the real Georgie that we loved oh so much had fallen ill from the pox when he was a small child. The sweet boy could not overcome the dreadful disease which had taken many young lives in our time. His poor mother, overcome with grief, had another child by the name of Gregory Washington later that year. I bet you did not know that. I will explain it all: why George can lie, why he is not even George, and the disappearance of Gregory Washington.

It all started on a crisp spring morning in the colonies. A recent shipment from our motherland, Great Britain, had just delivered a large shipment of school supplies, clothing, farming tools, tea, and more. I was particularly excited because the cloth would mean a new dress would be sewn for me by my dear mother. God, rest her soul.

Georgie had been dead for those last couple of months. The winter blew in with the pox and took him as well as many other classmates. Several desks stood empty as the teacher prattled on about some tedious mathematical concept. The spindly legs looked like bones that contained the ghosts of the children who had once sat there. Indeed, they rattled as we got up to leave when class was dismissed and seemed to stare at our backs as we left.

As I got up to leave with the rest of the students, a cold breeze blew onto my skin and left me shivering slightly. I looked back to see George sitting at his former desk looking forlornly in my direction. In my fright, I fled as fast as I could out of the schoolyard and to my home. On my way, I passed by George’s home where I saw his father planting a seed in the cold soil. He caught my eye and whispered to me.

“This time next year, this will be a beautiful cherry tree in the honor of my son.” How I could hear him, I never knew. Maybe the wind blew his words to me like a feather on the wind. Maybe something more sinister was afoot.

It was true. The next year, a wonderful cherry tree had sprouted supernaturally fast out of the earth and took its place next to the native trees in the yard. Likewise, Gregory had also begun to grow abnormally fast and exhibited strange similarities to George.

One evening, I paid a visit to Gregory on his birthday to wish him well. I had baked him an apple pie with the new shipment of sugar that had recently come to port. His age was now three years however he looked like a six year old child. I could see the concern on his parent’s faces as they welcomed guests and well-wishers. All at once, a group of villagers had come for the merriment and Gregory slipped outside into the pleasant June night. The blossoms on the cherry tree glowed in the moonlight as a few fluttered down from the branches and laid to rest in the dewy grass. I followed him out.

“Gregory? You mustn’t leave your parent’s sight! Who knows what creature may be lurking–!” I stopped.

A glow was emitting from Gregory. He morphed into the very image of George as he walked slowly to the tree, floating slightly. To my horror, his jaw began to unhinge and open wide like a snake’s. The grotesque sight kept me glued to my spot as George took a bite of the cherry tree like it was not made of bark but a soft substance. It broke and splintered. He swallowed every bite, every leaf, every petal until the tree was reduced to a stump with a child’s teeth marks gouged into the wood.

It created such a mighty noise that all the people in the house had run out to see what was happening. George’s mother wept profusely in fright. The villagers stared in shock.

“What have you done?! Did you eat this tree?” asked the father, not even believing the words that had come out of his mouth.

The creature, George, twisted around slowly and stared at his father with eyes that seemed to look past our souls. “I can’t tell a lie, Pa.”

“You cannot call me Pa, creature. You are no son of mine!” said the father.

George scowled unnaturally, stretching his jaw in a way no human could possibly imitate. Getting on all fours, he scuttled into the forest near the house, leaving no trace of his presence.

At once, the mother fainted on the ground, losing her first child for the second time and losing her second child for the first. The father swore the villagers to secrecy though word would spread of the story of George Washington and the cherry tree.

As if to banish a demon, the Washingtons bore a third son who they had named George. He went on to be a great man though his curse would never transfer, because he swore off children in fear of creating another creature.

We never saw the first George or Gregory again. The stump sat in the yard, the last remnant of the lost sons of Washington, and I went on to tell the true tale of George Washington.

Calm

Can you see the sky opening up
Pouring glass down to our streets and
The homes

And showing us the heavens?
Singing of droplets on wet grass,
And concrete

Can you see the angry lightening
Crashing into the unsubstantial parts
Of our minds

As the chaos of the gods fight for our hearts?
Near our beliefs, and it is
Shattering

Not yet, there is only calm before a storm.
Flowing to the heavens.
Forever.

(Note: I wrote this when I was 16, and I still feel as though I could never write something better.)

Words That Never Came

I’m not interested in the cosmos, god, eternal youth.
I’m not talking about the search for truth.
I’m talking about the search for connection.
Affection, perfection…
I’m talking about the moments when I forget how to talk
Emotional key and lock
The moments when I choke on “I love you’s”
“I don’t believe you’s” and “I accuse you’s.”
And they stay in my head because I’m too scared
To let a human know that I once cared
Just once, but it goes on forever.
I’m not that fickle.
I haven’t forgotten that we all say things we don’t mean.
Words that are mean, obscene, and sweet.
Words we want to hear, words we need to hear
Are the words that we most fear
Form together to make a thought
Caught on my tongue but I try to express through my eyes
Help me.
Oh god, help me.
Being stuck in your own mind is the definition of insanity.
And I know how easy it is to abandon me
It is easy to be dumb and deaf.
Hard to help yourself
Hard to understand one another
To reach out to friends and brothers
I know we are all connected by blood
When we crawled out of the mud
We survived and shouted we would!
And I did.
I had overcome.
Embodied freedom
Jumped the chasm.
I’ve been at the bottom.
I can reach the top…
I can’t stop….
Hoping
Using words for coping
Someone once said that if you give hydrogen enough time then it will wonder where it came from.
I must be a bit weird.
Because I’m wondering where we are going
And when we get there, will we be alone?

Falling Out

Working towards harmonization
Hormonal matriculation
Contributing all oblivion
Not anything, nix
Annihilation is the only answer
Because what was sweet is now so bitter
Flutter, fade, try forget her.
Float away quick decay and recapture the day
When we realized there was nothing left to say.
My death, an expression
Aborted, abandoned, deteriorated mission
Expel the toxin. Kill the vermin.
Keep the sexual tension
Reminds me of what it means to be alive.
What you deprive me of. Enough.
Give it to me rough. Tie me up. Bring me down.
Take this picture to develop, show it to the town.
I memorized your hand, your hand I relinquish.
Burn my wish, emotionally famished
Starved, gone hungry, roadless journey
Marching neuron army
Bullets of thoughts
Fraught with frustration, rumination,
Realizing and rationalizing why
Who, what, where, oversimplify.
Occupy my matter.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing”
“Are you OK?”
“I’m fine.”
I’m lying.
Buying her a gift
Here it is, here it goes.
My death throes
I up and left.

A slender neck… (Sonnet)

A slender neck with which to reach the heavens,
To taste the vegetation of Eden.
The weak and small perish, the strong strengthens:
Creature well-versed in the rules of famine.
The ones below must raise their chins up high
In awe, the glory of prehistoric times
As they watched species fall, succumb and die
And sweet nectar travels north. How it climbs
With Darwin’s vertebrae embedded inside
And spotted fur like archipelagos.
Eyelashes batting, chest swelled in content stride
In Sahara grasses piled with bone’s echoes.
Crushed acacia scent from frightened calf
Treads the wise and proud beast of height: giraffe.

Thoughts on “The Death of Dolgushov”

The Russian Jewish writer Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel fought in the first World War, later becoming a journalist. In many of his stories, the narrator appears as a semi-autobiographical apparition of Babel himself. Throughout his tales, the identity of a soldier and the grasp on the horrors of battles and war are shown with great, gory detail and shock the reader into attention. Set near the town of Brody, “The Death of Dolgushov” tells of the Russian Invasion into Polish territory.  In the story, a man in the army makes the decision to flee after witnessing the horrors of war. The narrator’s grasp to the value of a human life is shown through many aspects of the tale and is a constant reminder of the humanity of war regardless of the moral or ethical reasons for any of the actions. Constant environmental cues pop up in the actions of the superiors and the actions of fellow soldiers as they lay on the border of battle. In memories and interactions of the men are the threads of their thoughts on what the price of a life is and if it is worth expending.

In a particular scene, Vytyagaichenko, the regimental commander who is rumored to be fired, has an interaction with his wounded men. The men are spoken for under one delegate who says that they are not able to fight anymore. Under normal circumstances in the Russian Army, they would kill the wounded who refused to fight and die honorably. “’Don’t whine.’ Said Vytygaichenko, turning to face him. ‘Don’t worry – we won’t leave you behind.’ And he gave the order to move off.” A true show of how men of war regard the death and life of their brothers perhaps. These wounded men were about to meet their maker on the battlefield if their injuries did not succeed in killing them first. Afonka, a comrade in arms, has a response that  surprises the narrator with his blunt statement: “If he’s really been fired, we’re done for. Yes, soap the rope and kick away the stool…” Vytyagaichenko does not bother with the lives of his men when he has nothing to go back to after the war. If the rumors are true, he would return disgraced. Afonka, knowing this, continues into the fight with the high probability of being wounded or killed. The tears in his eyes symbolize his farewell to life as he “soaps the rope and kicks away the stool.”

The environment of death seems to sweep closer to them, it is apparent in the beginning as “the veils of battle swept towards the town,” and Babel describes how the bullets whined and burrowed into the ground. This boils down to Afonka’s frustration with the commander’s decision to march into death as he says: “’The enemy are all of three miles away. How are we going to slash them down if our horses are winded? There’ll be time enough – God damn it – to meet our Maker!” This attention to God and the afterlife seems to almost pair with the upcoming scene of the narrator and another man, Grishchuk, as they come upon Polish soldiers that pop up behind graves like zombies. The decision for Vytyagaichenko to march on is made clear through these passages. His regard to the human life of those under his command does not matter as long as his position in the regiment is in danger. Near the end of the story, there is a moment where the narrator moves away from this environment to save his own life which he valued so dearly. “I rode off at a walk, not turning round; in my back I felt the cold of death.” He rides away at the same pace that Vytyagaichenko sets for the riders to go into their demise. Behind him is the ruin of a line of men to never return to their families or have children and Afonka who returns to battle.