The Girl Who Sees Things
- As Disciple
I told you the worst of things:
how It held the sheets taught over
my mouth at night, how It chucked books
right off of my shelf, how It possessed my body
and It/I walked into walls, into the air, for starters.
You told me your worst things:
knock-knocks from the closet door,
sensing eyes on you, faces in mirrors,
all since we’ve met. That night It came at us,
at me, choked me up in the air and you prayed
in the name of your Lord. Seeing It for the first time,
all the pray-crying you were doing,
only made things worse.
- As Skeptic
I told you the worst of things:
how I was scared shit-less after,
how It didn’t like you, not one bit,
how you often shouldn’t come here,
what days were safe, or else you’d find It/me.
You told me it isn’t getting worse:
said to let it go, to drop it. You laughed
it off, played it down, chest-thumped your
Godlessness, said you were being a “Man”
about it, quoted argument forms, history, physics,
and basically told me I’m looney-tooney, batshit crazy.
It was pleased, though. It said so.
No more pray-crying could
only make things better.
Erric Emerson is a poet residing in Philadelphia, PA. He is the former Poetry Editor of Duende, staffed by the undergraduates of Goddard College. His work has appeared in Collage, Neon, Gingerbread House, Control literary journal, Mead: The Magazine of Literature & Libations, and Prairie Margins.
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