Apocalypse with Eyeliner
BY C. RUSSELL PRICE
I believe in past lives.
I wasn’t dead, just waiting
around for you.
A corner in Rogers Park,
in line at Target,
the stranger at a birthday party…
According to your ascending sign
and the twenty buck psychic,
you were born to bury me.
My body: a shoebox of histories
it never wanted.
The night you beat me
I became a highway
lined wildflower field.
When the plane covers me
in an insecticide cloud,
I turn into toxic honeysuckle.
You let your future
children feed
on me. Their tongues
swell and they chant
my name back to you.
This Must Be The Place
BY C. RUSSELL PRICE
content warning: sexual assault
My rapist’s driving
to work and the traffic is terrible.
My rapist’s wife
is driving and cackling at a podcast.
My rapist’s high school
friend just had a baby, Mazel.
My rapist’s old neighbor
lost her foot in a car wreck.
My rapist’s coworker
laughed at one of his rape jokes, again.
My rapist’s accountant
is getting suspicious of the hush.
My rapist’s mailman
gets candy on Christmas like his grandma did.
My rapist’s check-out person
hates his smugness.
My rapist’s hometown
cancels school to harvest Virginia tobacco.
My rapist’s church
was my church.
My rapist’s friends
are my friends.
My rapist’s mother
is my Mother’s sister.
My rapist’s reading
this poem and looking for his name.
My rapist’s name
starts with a B.
