It’s dead. The horror movie stag stared into a dollar store’s heaven.

I stood with crossed arms, a grave marker model, skin pressed 

Against the city’s street island tree until the sickly bark raised grooves of red ache

Returning to a singed harmony.

Pain is normal, this one’s new.

Smoke billowed from the scattering sparks,

Dissolving in a last tail shake

Like all the other overrun animals that cared about surviving.

The monster sank in glimpses through a wreath of plastic straws, the only way to look 

At something so massive being dismembered as quick as a mascara swipe,

These traffic saplings could be old growth by now, fertilized with crying years and running dye.

The thing that quietly watched retro shows through an open window 

Is somewhere untouchable,

A cold bank with slippery footholds, regretting every bellow 

Before it slammed ashtrays through its collarbones. 

The rest is a ruptured clot,

A dirty napkin in a scrapbook of when I was easy to kill.

The rest had me clumping around a vicious streak,

A protected circle paced out with thorns in my knuckles.

I cowered at the scent of a cigarette approaching

And a stomp through the wall, an affectionate palm on my neck.

I wanted to believe in a minotaur 

That wouldn’t bleed his own calves in the maze.

The monster is dead where no one should have even tried to breathe.

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Noll Griffin is a visual artist, writer, and musician based in Berlin, Germany. His poetry has appeared in The Purposeful Mayonnaise, The Wild Word, and Reap Thrill among others and his first chapbook titled “Tourist Info” is available through Alien Buddha Press. You can find him on Instagram at @nollprints or on Tumblr/Twitter/Bluesky under @nollthere.