Borderline

Plaything

After Chuck Palahniuk’s “Exodus”…

Take me stale from the evidence locker,
all weighted and unbreathing,
my body lumpy with its almost flesh.
Touch me, everywhere, for days.
Never shower, do not wash your hands,
hollow me out mess and sweat stick.
I will not object. I cannot stop you.
In more ways than one, I was made for this.

Vessel me, disposal me perfect.
Position my arms. I cannot move them myself.
Spread my legs and hold them there,
resistance is for the living.
I was made to be useful, not breathing.
Play with me, watch my body fresh-fish
caught on the island of this hotel bed.
You have done this before.

My color-dyed eyes do not see your faces,
your wedding rings on the night stand.
I do not know the you, you are.
New, old, returning shame-faced to take me again,
all I feel is rhythm, force.
No touch is different enough to tell.

See my Industrial detail.
My hand-placed hair and taut-lipped mouth,
perfect for you, nothing out, never out.
I am pincushion and closet give me in,
push me in, give me in, and in, and in
give in to this urge I cannot blame you.
Blame is for the living and I am more useful this way.
As vessel, as secret keeper, anatomically correct,
I will hold you.
I can hold anything. I was made for this.

Even these razorblades,
placed X-acto knife perfect inside me
after a pair of hands hasty surgery.
Even lifeless, I am deadly now.
Pain folded into my pleasure like a whisper.
Fuck yourself bloody against my almost-skin.
Now I am revenge,
damage done, still a toy,
unagenda’d I will not be “no consequence.”:
I will not be “Scott-free.”
I am Revenge, now.
Take me stale from the evidence locker
with my razor-bladed insides quivering
with anticipation.
Touch me hungry, I will feed you blood.
Revenge is for the living.
I was made for this.

Filch
with apologies to J.K. Rowling…

She kept her last name.
Promised me her hand fresh in 7th year,
in return I gave her my world, my wand,
my love and she gave me all I did not ask for
but kept the one thing I did request,
she wouldn’t yield.

I asked her, heart stuck in my throat,
stubborn as gum under a desk,
but she was always her own woman.
I can still hear her giggle underneath the teeth,
perpetual echoes etched into the callous stone walls
of the castle at night.
I push my mop like a quill, scribbling her a love letter
in soap-scum and sweat.

She is not gone…
but she might as well be.
And the kids…the damn kids,
they mock my pain.
“Filthy Filch” they call me,
contorting their faces into my scowl
like a costume, a mask.
If I could smile through it all, I would children,
rest assured.
I care about the rules so passionately, brats,
because I once broke one when it mattered most.

Hiding under the Hogwarts stars,
she and I practiced magic too advanced for us then.
Playing house, she called me husband,
called herself, my Mrs. Norris,
flawless and stubborn she didn’t take my name.
All her Ravenclaw smarts couldn’t keep her hand steady,
her wand shook, her voice cracked and nervous,
she couldn’t get the words right.

She sprouted fur,
her voice was swallowed in a storm of growls,
her face prickled, acupuncture’d to whiskers,
I lost my smile that moment, children
tossed it like a sickle in a wishing well,
devoured in a forever of terror,
I tried my best to change her back,
but you can’t do magic with a broken heart.
When something bad enough happens
whatever lets us do the impossible slips out of skin
like sweat and dances into irreversible vapor.
I tried to save her, and kept her alive…
but she would never change back.
Albus said there was nothing to be done,
“an accident of magic” he called it,
an “act of God.”

I dropped out of school the next morning,
figured I’d learned enough.
A groom and a widower all too early,
in love with a cat that used to be an angel.
Evelyn, darling, you never took my name!
Every day I try to learn again,
practicing magic when no one is looking,
inching, crawling back to whatever made me strong enough
to turn you into this cat and change you back.
My darling, my angel, my bad luck alley cat,
I will never spill our secret or stop trying to save you.
My Evelyn, my Mrs. Norris.
You will walk down the aisle on your own two legs,
take a ring from my hand, and take my name
as your own, my Mrs. Norris.
I love you, always.