how sad, triffid flower

boots on my feet

blood on my boots, a mouthful of meat

i’m a rare handy butcher, trained up good

charcuterie counter/buckets of blood*

*this poem is inspired, in part, by ‘Reviving Ophelia’ by Mary Pipher. Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher | Goodreads There’s an astonishingly glum episode therein, where the author describes an interview with a highschool class. She asks them, if you weren’t a human, what would you want to be?

And the boys all describe fierce, exotic, exciting animals: lions and tigers and bears, predators all. Predators with agency, and motion, and control over their destinies.

The first girl she asks, this tragic bint says, in a dieaway pathetic little whine, “Oh, if only I could be a flaaa-werrr…”

Hey-zooz. Anyhow. You wanna be a flower, buddy-bitch? If I were a flower… then I would be a triffid. Big, and green, and a bit hairy. And mobile.

And carnivorous.

And then he collected himself, looking a little guilty. “Well, at any rate, that was a bust. He’s given up the idea since, I’m pretty sure: it can’t help that he’s losing his hair at a jolly old rate of knots, and never had any chin or cheekbones to speak of in the first place. Pulchritude can substitute for talent in youth: but once your youthful charms are gone, all you’ve got is what you’ve put the work in to hone and polish.”

he touched his hand to his hair again briefly, and to his face as if to smooth out the odd faint touch of wear, time’s kisses. Besides the pallor and shadows of the stress he was under, Erik could discern the faintest traces of ageing. Wasn’t he a connoisseur on the subject? It didn’t detract altogether from his charms: only lent a trace of maturity that had been lacking, a spurious air of wisdom. (Spurious, surely. Erik ought to know that by now.)

“Vicarious satisfaction, then?” Erik diagnosed. “If he can’t hog the spotlight himself, let him at least have the star of the show on a collar and leash, jumping when he says jump, hoops a-gogo? Sharing the red carpet and swagging off with every Emmy, Tony and Academy Award, on permanent loan in his creepy little lair?2

“Erik,” Charles said, and shook his head. He smirked a little, as he said, “You used to be such a nice boy.”

“Yes,” Erik agreed. ‘Then you happened to me,’ he added mentally.

And then he collected himself, looking a little guilty. “Well, at any rate, that was a bust. He’s given up the idea since, I’m pretty sure: it can’t help that he’s losing his hair at a jolly old rate of knots, and never had any chin or cheekbones to speak of in the first place. Pulchritude can substitute for talent in youth: but once your youthful charms are gone, all you’ve got is what you’ve put the work in to hone and polish.”

he touched his hand to his hair again briefly, and to his face as if to smooth out the odd faint touch of wear, time’s kisses. Besides the pallor and shadows of the stress he was under, Erik could discern the faintest traces of ageing. Wasn’t he a connoisseur on the subject? It didn’t detract altogether from his charms: only lent a trace of maturity that had been lacking, a spurious air of wisdom. (Spurious, surely. Erik ought to know that by now.)

And then he collected himself, looking a little guilty. “Well, at any rate, that was a bust. He’s given up the idea since, I’m pretty sure: it can’t help that he’s losing his hair at a jolly old rate of knots, and never had any chin or cheekbones to speak of in the first place. Pulchritude can substitute for talent in youth: but once your youthful charms are gone, all you’ve got is what you’ve put the work in to hone and polish.”