Lazy Susan

I sit drowned in the pit-stained couch

bog grey and stale like milk without sugar

sewn up and stretched over limp dust bunnies

only a man could pick out.

My thighs sticky kissing clutching wet my neighbors on this couch

I don’t know

I guess we are living.

Through thin smoke

3 men escort a velvet teenager

her black hair oiled stuck around her pretty face like spider’s legs

heavy-lidded in tight black small clothes

and big shoes like bowls.

They lean against the counter, elbows gummed with beer and spit

and swivel her by the chin in their frog hands

swallowing the rubies slipping through her half open eyes

her smile dripping slow like the blood of trees.

I hate teenagers, they scare me.

I watch the four of them, mostly three, make believe talking.

Her smile dripping, holding her chin,

when all they want is to fuck her, I think.

To share her or if not

to own her name,

and chew it into sand.

I think to clap my hands at her half open eyes slipping rubies

“Wake up!”

but I’m late.

One of the men takes out a gun

holds it to her spider leg forehead

one pokes a knife toward her stomach

one holds a licked match to her back.

The gun shoots

the knife stabs

the fire melts the threads of her tight black t-shirt.

She’s all fire and holes.

And I run.

I run down the boulevard

I run down the street

I run all the way home

I don’t breathe

I shut the door.

On the television

my parents watch

while somebody burns.