Baby Eyes
Standalone.
Stale blood covering her body and her clothes. Clumps of it dried in her long, flowing devil hair. Demon eyes wide open displaying permanent shock, forever crying ruby red tears. With two absent, remaining fingers point in odd directions, shying away from the damned bloody stumps where pinkie and pointer used to sit. Once pure, angel-white, now angry red, splintered bone jutting upwards away from an arm, pulling on the muscle, tissue and skin, tearing it, ripping it. Awkward knees pointing inwards and downwards, both facing away from each other, distorting bashful legs. Wooden planks, side by side, pressing against her, muffling her already inaudible murmurs for help.
Baby fingers find the poorly concealed hole, hook inwards and wrench backwards. Stench of rotting humanity drifts upwards, filling baby nostrils, making baby eyes leak. Baby eyes become mourning eyes, disbelieving eyes, and baby eyes weep. Baby mouth opens and baby voice screams. Baby, baby, baby - baby don’t believe.
Missing Girl Found Under Floorboards. Headlines burn my eyes as we whiz past. I wish this car was my getaway car. It is not. It is just a car, taking me to a place that I don’t want to see.
Post-funeral, sitting on a park bench eating McDonald’s and Baby says to me, “What happens to us when we die?”
I don’t wanna tell Baby that we are missed, we are remembered, we are cried for, we are prayed for, we are buried and we rot. We decompose beneath six feet of soil. We are eaten by the dark-dwelling monsters of the Earth, the tiny hungry worms and the tinier, hungrier ghosts of worms.
“Look up at the sky,” I say, “That is what we become.”
Baby stares at the night sky and her eyes grow wide. “We become darkness?”
“We become stars,” I say “and when a star goes out, it becomes an angel. And angels are forever.”
“I want forever,” Baby says and she looks blissful. I don’t want to tell Baby that she only wants forever because it is the one thing that she cannot have.
Instead I reply, “Me too.”
Because I do.
Baby fingers find the poorly concealed hole, hook inwards and wrench backwards. Stench of rotting humanity drifts upwards, filling baby nostrils, making baby eyes leak. Baby eyes become mourning eyes, disbelieving eyes, and baby eyes weep. Baby mouth opens and baby voice screams. Baby, baby, baby - baby don’t believe.
Missing Girl Found Under Floorboards. Headlines burn my eyes as we whiz past. I wish this car was my getaway car. It is not. It is just a car, taking me to a place that I don’t want to see.
Post-funeral, sitting on a park bench eating McDonald’s and Baby says to me, “What happens to us when we die?”
I don’t wanna tell Baby that we are missed, we are remembered, we are cried for, we are prayed for, we are buried and we rot. We decompose beneath six feet of soil. We are eaten by the dark-dwelling monsters of the Earth, the tiny hungry worms and the tinier, hungrier ghosts of worms.
“Look up at the sky,” I say, “That is what we become.”
Baby stares at the night sky and her eyes grow wide. “We become darkness?”
“We become stars,” I say “and when a star goes out, it becomes an angel. And angels are forever.”
“I want forever,” Baby says and she looks blissful. I don’t want to tell Baby that she only wants forever because it is the one thing that she cannot have.
Instead I reply, “Me too.”
Because I do.
♠ ♠ ♠
I want forever too.