The Dance
I am dressed as a beast and I am dressed as a hungry animal
and I am in a room full of prey. There are girls here that look like deer
boys that look like rabbits, everybody smells like food.
I howl at the moon looming in the window and a few eyebrows raise
because they think I’m just dressed as a beast I’m not
actually a beast, I’m perfectly safe even though I am
a little strange.
Because I am so strange, it doesn’t take long for one of the deer girls
to come over and offer a tiny smile of acknowledgement
shy prey drops eyes after initial contact. Blood pours into
dormant arteries. Stomach growls. “I haven’t eaten all day.”
It sounds like a joke, she brings me a tray of crackers and little sandwiches.
There was a time when it would be more shocking for me to dance with a woman
than to gut and kill the same woman in the alley out back. I remember those times.
I remember the newspaper headlines. It makes planning an evening out
so much more difficult, knowing that we can just leave this night
at a dance, and no one would say a thing.
Horror Sleaze Trash 