Jagged Little Thrill

Words by Oak Morse

Let me call my neighbors who they were

—humans heavy of the world

who brilliantly taught me malice and deceit,

branding me in grim.

Don’t make the main character unlikeable.

But what’s more likeable

than a monster offering his arteries, his secrets?

The last time I saw angels dangle

was before I stole, before lied about being thirteen to get a job.

I see my spiked nature. I see it in the others too.

Oh, scorpions and soldiers, a body cannot live without

a couple drops of evil.

Who hath summoned me to be a bruised saint?

A jelly fish sting upon you who

scammed me out of $200. That night I bit into a pretty

peach that veiled a blade, the taste of gore, a dream.

I gamble with my sanity. I mistake myself for an alien ally.

Octanes of evil make this land a cemetery elegant and horrid.

Look under your nails. The residue of betrayal

and lies you left upon your precious people

on your journey. If you carve my core, you will see I want out of evil.

I still reap sins hard to remember, the ones I cast on myself.

But who can be the regulator of my evil? Fury erupts to self-flame and I

become a quiet case of knives.

I feed the serial lover in me, nurture the morose person.

Here is when I ask God to retire for a holier God

who shows mercy on me. Everything seems held for ransom—

the exchange of voice for victory, truth for peace.

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