Pandemic Plea for Pyramid Head

art by Aubrey Beardsley, 1894, 
courtesy of the Public Domain Review

by Seth Wade

Sometimes love hurts more
than any disease ever could.
                                    —Silent Hill 2 by Hiroyuki Owaku

Drag me like your great knife rasping down these deserted halls,
that childlike screech of metal scraping metal—oh baby, just cage me,
mummy me with wire & toss me in the trash for it’s been that sort of year

& I’m turning fast food bags into little party hats, cleaving myself mannequin
until your pixels stain my sleepless nights & suddenly I wake up & play
footsie with the cockroaches kissing my toes as I go brew coffee

pretending I understand all your puzzles—so baby, just flay me
like a dripping deer or cancer & I will ignore my debts,
instead flop to the cold, cracked floor, and fruit.

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