Baby #1

Stream of Consciousness POV Workshop/Genre: Horror

Stream of Consciousness POV Workshop

Prompt: Hooters, Pyroclastic, Sunshine:

Nick Winney

Spit slobbed at the corners of his mouth. They say komodo dragons desire rotting meat. These aren't hunters, they're scavengers. Lopping up the bread crumbs as if it's the last time they'll ever live just to die, die. Nothing lives behind the meat slabs. Nothing that anyone wants. No twenty five cent treasure. It's human to believe in speckles of joy through kaleidoscope maps. We share the same air, Jupiter born to be here.

My waitress shirt clung close to my genetically framed tits like bowling balls in an alley. Blonde cut out magazine face, dressed like 2000s, dogs in heat. Male predatory gaze. Lost in the fantasy. Early night treat.

Pop slurps up underneath the lips, dark circles cresting the eyes. You haven't slept in days. Blame the hormones. Blame the stench. They're easy pickings. They sew their skin like love ribbons. They don't want to die alone.

Touch and go flirting. The fat touches the end of my fingers. It's juicy. In the gums, lingerie for suckers who want trophies. They whisper my name, their lone truck stop catches wind. Cigarette between my lips sucks all the oxygen. Asphyxiation weathers my face with fire. Hands made of glass.

It's me they want. Unrefined. Places you've been running from, uncontrolled. We crave consumption. My candle wax burns grief. We're addicts.

Japanese silk is a dark angel in the moonlight. Skin to skin, beneath the layers, it wraps up all the rot. When they change, many rooms live unexplored. When they scream my name, I feel truth in deprivation. They won't leave.

"Miss? Could you refill my drink?"

Skin rubs skin. Slightly. Marked red x, the spot. Their voices live beneath a vault, its violent crystal vermilion.

Plastic is contained at their seats. Every time I take breath, something inside of me has left, the mouth ajar, the wheezy voice yo yo’s their throat. In paradise, we glide together. Slip of numbers on receipts, salt on the tongue.

Baby, will you be my baby?

Baby, number 9.

***

I met Mr. Sunshine when I saw the reflection of his eyes. Fields burned acres of screams in our first hellos. He didn't belong here. Mystery, petrol rolled on the collarbone. To be alive is a commodity, torch the stake, and don't let me scar. A shiver crawled through the bone, his mouth opened, slivers melted my veins, a sacrifice.

Every night at exactly 5:00. A shadow that meshed with mine. Time dissolved. Months passed. Hours bled into the skies.

Under the knife of love. Dissected and resurrected. How to fuck had become barren. An itch, a volatile rash budding at the surface. I've become the stalker. Listen to nature. Buckle up and drive. Mr. Sunshine was the king dinner. He wouldn't bend the knee. Cartilage that didn't vaporize.

Burner phones in the hundreds. Bled in me dry, caught the fly. My North Star. Sunshine. The only one allowed to burn. I can smell him a mile away. Dark hair, a chocolate you can taste. Bitter overtones and spiced sweat. Summer street he is the gasoline. His voice is a privilege, a master of none.

Jackal of all trades. The devil wants me to be the one.

Until yesterday.

Twist of the knife, cruel of the fates. We exchanged numbers. I crushed the paper in my bra. I smelled all the wrong in the world behind its sleeves. Sounds fall away from my ear drums, timbre in its offenses. Adrenaline rushed up my limbs. Unprepared, my heart dropped to my stomach. Dizzy dreams. Its magnitude felt unbearable. Triple vision swift.

You had to cash in. Behind the dumpster. Feeling the grooves of his skin. Not mundane. The loudness of his breath. Lock it in. Mr. Sunshine's eyes trilled into my blood. Hooters wannabe sound clouds drowned out. You let him take apart the garments. Rot on your breath. Still light germinating on the sinew.

You didn't mean to. You have to. You cut him. You cut him because you love him. He has to be parts that move the machine. Forever. Never. Felt so far. Just as the devil wants it to be. Night angels. Flatten every mountain, every hill. You know I will.

Baby, Sunshine, will you be my number 15?

Baby.

***

God made me strong, the devil made me wicked. Gemini's split feminine side. The breeder's back woods named me Jupiter. A planet that didn't deserve to share life. Slipped from the broken bottles, cut the throats of many to make it or break it. Rituals without suspects.

Chasm that lives in the forest. Lay my head in the flames. His body barely stirred on the drive home. Petrol, my Sunshine is defined. A mouth full of lye and loam, budded for sweet dreams. We die alone and relish our oxygen. Chemical free zest. Holes leak, all the odors punch the senses. Close it in, touch my skin.

Sunshine didn't need a real name, they've all tried before. He was built on a pedestal. A king needs a throne.

My thorns show themselves in full bloom.

The rocket was made by scientists gone feral. They did not ask about my anarchy. My rhyme or reason to see the stars. His limp body meekly coalesced with the structure. Phallic shaped pointed for the sky. Fisherman's rope harmonized with his blurry eyes.

Married to the sight. I smoked my cigarette, his resign in nude. His hands sewn together in prayer pose. Sunshine's eyes match yours, a sheep in wools fleece. He doesn't call out your name. His reserve lives untainted, immortalized from the left over portrait.

Before he goes, you bend over and lick the arsenic from his lips. It tastes better from him. You hoped for a fight. He took it all in. A shadow of your shadow.

"Sweetheart, please do me right. Close your eyes."

Dynamite sizzles before it explodes. Baby is pyroclastic, he flies through the sky, a voluble sheet rock, fragments that taste of his end. Gas and rock debris. A perfect comet made in heaven.

I'm the only one. I've been the only one who will love you.