EVIL MTN GOES

TRICK-R- TREATING

094.

Wolf man sighting in the downtown prison cell maze. According to observers, he forgets why he's come. Park crowd with their fingrs in the feathrs of their pets. Holding up their lightrs to the fire tree and gagging. Isn't it obvious? Aren't we all scraped up and spitting on the bus? The moon wakes up to a thousand hawks in a garbage can. Cry pots full of drowned azaleas. A horrid conversation and a handwritten exit sign. So evry leaf will tolerate a little more abuse. So evry wasp is thinking of a name. So hammers go thru windows just as easily as tree trunks. For now. The kind of shimmering and propaganda only ever visible thru keyholes. Yes to the fury and the magic of the rancid bond between beast and fence. I've been waiting for this night for so many lesser, bloodless nights.

095.

I know I wanna dress up as a slithr at least once. Other than that, I'm completely lost.

096.

Evry time I leave my house, it floods itself with rage. I touch my eye to the lock in the hopes that that will change something. I don't want this anymore than you do, I say. This is all just a big misunderstanding, I say. I'm not even the least bit sry, I say.

097.

I dig up several scrapes and lay 'em on me. I'm practically buried in "accident". I rake up all the bodies of the crickets that are dead because of me and line my pockets. I shave. And a dapper hat to chew. I knock on the mountainous house of the architect and the sound it makes is ancient and slightly fucked. I knock and hear a nail that never got where it was going. I knock and eradicate a skylight. My touch against the wall's touch is warm and unspecified. I knock, I knock, I knock, I knock, and no one seems to mind.

098. A passing little kid says, what are you supposed to be?

I clear my throat and say, cornered. I don't turn around.

099. I knock until my blood gets tired. I set myself ablaze until it's no longer my problem. I leave the soot and ashes of my costume in the crack lines of the porch. I hope someone appreciates the effort that I put into it.

100.

Here's where I drape myself in all my dirty sheets and walk along the railroad 'til I'm driven off by huskies and my buzz is ruined. Of course, I say. That's great, I say. What's next? I say. I stare at my reflection in the roaring of a distant train. I say, there's a reason that I'm

sour. I say, I'm not wrong.

Afterwards, I walk a small bit faster on the absent road. I feel justified and interesting, and I smile beneath my sheets.

101.

Smell the coral tucked up in the cracks along the sidewalk. Feel the soil as it turns a darker shade. See how I police the way the houses look at me. Hear how grateful I've become, as I bray at them and turn my back.

102.

Somewhere it is raining, and I slash my sheets to make them more revealing. Show my arteries. I walk to the old woman's house and play chords along my gullet pipes. "Screaming", I guess you might call it. I'm defragmenting the dead skin on my hand fingrs, sat outside her door. Knocking. I write HELLO across my face to make things easier. I use my knife hand. No one gives a shit.

103.

The old woman opens her door and behind her the house is moist with the sound of boiling. It grinds along her body and the edges of the door. It clings to her dusty nightgown. Trick-r-treat, I say. I hold out my hand. Her nostrils flare. A kitten barks. We turn out all the lights. I count evry bloodstain on my sheets that I can see. Can you guess my costume? I say. A furrow of her speckled brow, a damp wind on my neck, and I pretend I'm looking in a mirror. I'm married, I say. I pretend it's not too late.

104. The old woman sets an acorn in my hand. She smiles a bit. The trembling of her body says, Leave me. The sizzling of my body says, Ok.

105.

So I migrate to the scuffed shack of the secretary and I knock. No fancy stuff. Trick-r-treat. They open their door and say, What are you? I open my eyes and say, What am I?

They close their door and say, It's August. Why are you doing this? I close my mouth and say nothing, and let the white men take me away.

106.

Outside the window evrything’s shaking. Cars lag behind their own engine sounds, recording themselves saying the word CAR. Hissing the word CAR beneath their grimy breath. Bent over, vomiting the word CAR out into the street, tangled up in bits of hair, hacking up sores. I see myself in traffic. A sign tells me an heirloom is a creature if it wants to be. I hold my tongue and play dead in the freeway. I hide away from all opinions. Cars trying to find a way to work the word CAR into conversation. Not bothering to be subtle about it. I lay on my back and stare at my phone, lavished with the drippings from the slick txt. This is hard, I say. I smear something into my smile. I kill me sometimes. Cars buzzing into tired ears with the word CAR resting on their rusty lips. Screaming CAR into a great and empty space. I find the letter for CAR on my phone. I let myself be beat into the road. And I never look away until the end, when they stop, and get out of their cars, and shake their heads, and lay a dirty sheet over the puddle of me.

107.

Some people, they say.

108.

CAR, their cars say.

109.

I dress up in disinfectant and go stand on the street corner. Wiping the tears from my eyes. Telling the people, Hey, evryone.

Guess what I am. Like a dead mouse. All alone in the middle of my autumn. And someone comes along to put a note into my hands. People shove each other like it doesn’t bothr anyone. Footprints in the cream spilled on the curb. Drums pounding undrneath the brightness. A tiny tug on my sleeve. The note says, It’s winter now. We’re worried about you. Soft hands. Pick me up. Take me outside. It couldn’t be helped. Don’t blame yrself. I spread my arms and say, Hey, evryone.

I’m an animal. The press noting evrything I say with the tips of their rose stems. Evrything a little bit shaken. I look around and all I see are filthy mannequins.

110.

I lie in the mud and say, Look, I’m a cop. No one looks.

111.

Trick-r-treat, I say.

112.

Behind me, someone points and says-- No, they don’t. Nothing need be said. Behind me someone points and evryone just nods.

113.

Some people, they say despite themselves. 114.

You need help, their cars say despite evrything.

115.

Wolf man sighted in someone else’s coma. The family standing there gibbering above the hospital bed. I find them threatening the doctor, who is “forgetful”, and “an antique”. They’re brandishing their knives. All this time and money spent on hope. They’re handling the situation themselves.

115.

I’m not feeling quite like myself, I say to the doctor. I feel like… I clench my hand into a fist. I sniff snot up into my cave I snarl with my whole arm. I lock the door. I become distracted by the air. I slur my thoughts. I get these urges. I make a thick grip around my backbone. I love myself. I want to die. I use physical gestures to express the way I feel. The doctor looks up from her clipboard and says, I’m sry? I unclench my fist. I love myself. I say, Guess what I’m

supposed to be. The door stays locked. 116.

The doctor says, What? I say, I’m sry too.

117.

The doctor says, I don’t know what is happening.

118.

The family weeps into their knife hands.

119.

In the stillness of the room, something howls inside a sleeping man’s skull.

120.

I hover over my neighbr’s house with a crown on my head.

I walk to the house of the coward and whispr Notice me into his pipes with all my strength. I spackle the holes in the writer’s walls for the umpteenth time. I sit on the curb and soak up the milk. I forget where I’m going with any of this.

121. I still feel…

122. I make a throat slitting motion with my non-knife hand, which is supposed to be funny for multiple reasons.

123.

I feel like I don’t know you anymore, someone says. Or seems to say. Yes, I say definitively, out loud, to no one.

124.

This is hard, I say.

125.

Just be yrself, says a passing blackbird.

126.

Shut up, I say.

127.

A tomb lies undiscovered somewhere undrneath my house. The press gathr at the end of the block, wary, and take turns shouting that my dress is stunning. A little kid reads in a book that raccoons are vicious. They’ll scalp you without even blinking. So let’s maybe be ok with holding hands for once in our lives. The sky flips upside-down and no one notices. A prison fire roars into the dark and no one cares. In the face of overwhelming evidence, I shut myself inside and sit in silence.

128.

I’ve been waiting for this night for so many lesser, bloodless nights.