scrap/vignette

the flies

Churning, warping, pulling.
Fingers in our guts.
They twist until
you become me
and we are something else.
A mash.
Sweet summer apples
turned sour and rotten.It was pulp
then chafe
then putrid meat
- you should never have come here.
I hope the flies fill your sinuses.
I hope they lay eggs.
- you never should have come here.

-M.

7

about.

Some are me, some are not. All are of gossamer and steel.
minutia. is a living chapbook.

-M.

microprose / prose poem

jailer

I cook, you clean. That was the deal. I never did change the battery for our living room clock. I measure time by the height of dirty dishes. Each layer is another yesterday. Once patient in the sink, now stacked toward your height - an architectural marvel. A sculpture of you. Layered like sedimentary rock, each plate is proof I was here - but not like this. A glimpse of who I was, aching for who I could have become. Browns, blues, once-greens; congealed and longing.The glass of milk you never finished greets me every morning in all its green glory. Our cats' ears still perk up with every clumsy footstep outside our door and every jingle of keys that don't precede your aroma. They wail in the night, a chorus for you. I sing a softer song into damp linens.Again and again, I forget to bolt the door - bad habit. Maybe if I left it unlocked, the wind could pick up and push it back open, and maybe you with it. Wafts of jasmine, peppermint, basil. Our cats will go looking, for sure. And then they would leave me too.So now, I remember. Always bolt the door.We'll sing together, the cats and I.

-M.

1010

footnote

footnote: hands

The narrator is incapable of naming the loss. They live in the aftermath - not theirs. This has been written many times over to properly capture the externalization of grief. They are not ready to take it in and it should show even through their choice of language.
There are versions where the subject of the aftermath is referred to as "it," but the narrator is in a stage of grief where things are happening to them. Their ligaments fall and fail. The vacancy haunts them. The arms move. None of it is self-reflective yet because they aren't ready.
They haven't eaten enough halves ;)

-M.

poem

hands

Do I usually put my right hand against my hip like this?
Or am I a hand-in-pocket guy?
I forget.Wherever it falls, it fails to land.
The vacancy between my fingers haunts me.My arm swings awkwardly now;
a pendulum that's lost its counterweight.
My hands lived only to answer yours;
yours - now a phantom inquisitor.I expected emptiness in aftermath
but this is dullness - drab and grey.
It would have been better to be broken
than to be born again and brittle.
Life still tastes like cappuccino.
But it’s just hot water and froth.I’ve gained weight now that I eat both halves.
Fine - Because I’ll have to move all this shit by myself.
It cancels out.
Right?

-M.

272

microprose

the angel

Excessive chatter. White noise but it's green, blue, purple, black - noise all the same. I hear them when I ponder, when I eat, shit, sleep. When I Am - which is fucking always. Who'd want to Be if this is Being? An eternity of torment I couldn't escape if I tried. An honor, truly.They whine of their 9–5s but can't fathom the eternal weight and dredge of this... forced ear hustling. "Why did you make us?" - yeah, I only get that one a kajillion fucking times per minute. Good question because it sure beats me.But they will take anything at this point - to them even my cosmic shit is gold. So I can fling a piece down every now and again. And it works. It really does. See, Old Man? You should have left a long time ago - if time meant anything at all. They turned Yours into mana and Mine into cold hard cash. Cha-ching!

-M.

13