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"device" and "I will build you a blood house" by Barbara Genova

device


step away from the screen, two way mirror

it's me, i'm the one you've been wanting

won't you please – no.

be object, be artifact: lie down with the stone.


set the body to briefcase, device, universal kill switches

most delectable tricks to watch over,

what we have here is //

// how do we blow it up

deliver yourself from the dread of being live in a room you should know how to read


under glass, is it safe?, it's been tested

holding cell body set on vibrate off your wall

love the cage you've been placed in, for your protection, in truth, more than for the amusement of your occasional captors slash resentful partners in a previous crime (cut for time)

sever the bond that still makes you roll a finger on the lock in a whisper how you will show them a sick void if they just slide that bar, open

sear yourself from all hope; is there a way out (there is not),

frost yourself with the sweetness inevitable

you will be unleashed

you will invade and explode


take the power of sky beam, throw it high and above

remain light



I will build you a blood house


my man's a dream killer, he kills dreams for a living

he got into the spiel after family business

least that's how it started: the vocation came later

freeze and bone six roads removed from the spectacular now

so every day for night he suits up in his sneakers

shakes himself out the fear jacket and off he goes, butchering

yes indeed they work shifts there's a wheel

night for day, it's a murder on nerves

one week in you start seeing body shots in the water

and I wait until dawn in our house with no doors

no woods to be found but a crack in the window

I take my picture I do the dishes, this is pace, empty ashtrays

it's a good life we've got here

would be a shame if something happened to it




Barbara Genova (she/her/they) is the pen name of a public woman who went private. Poetry and stories written as Barbara have been published / are forthcoming at The Daily Drunk, surfaces.cx, Anti-Heroin Chic, Sledgehammer Lit, Scissors and Spackle, The Final Girl Bulletin Board, Fahmidan Journal, Misery Tourism, Hallowzine (2021), Expat Press, The Bear Creek Gazette, Discretionary Love, and the Hecate Magazine anthology issue #2 (DECAY, winter 2021). She can be found on Twitter @CallGenova and on Instagram @thebarbaragenova

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