✂ cut my hair real short so i’d have less to dye red, with the same scissors used for those paper hearts i snipped in half; yes, those words we pinned with our photographs are scattered in perfect edged pieces along my bedroom floor.

✂ can’t regift scissors ’cause i can barely stand looking at them, seems only fair to destroy our life together with them; perhaps, you’d understand the irony too (if i cared enough to ask you).

Set of scalpels

Cleave first drafts

Ink scores rhyme and verse

Split ends, cut away, the craft

Syntax, friend and curse

Onyx bleeds the final print

Razor’s edge, each word:

pencil/pen, the mind’s eye rent,

Sharp tip of the sword

He laughed, with a laugh which seemed to have no end. Jules opened her eyes and saw him holding a pair of scissors. Her hands were placed behind her back. She was all tied up in a wooden chair.

She followed his hands, and movement. He waved the pair of scissors back and forth. Twisting it around in his hands as if it were a toy. He spinned it right by her face and laughed again. How she detested his laugh!

He squinted his eyes, and then slowly snipped away bits of her hair. With one free hand, he grabbed some of the hair from the floor & tossed it in the air.

‘‘You need to stop this madness!’’

Her words caught him by surprise. He clicked his tongue and bent down on one knee.

‘‘My dear Jules. The party has just started.’’

She trembled. Why was he keeping her tied up and out of sight.

He brushed her hair with his fingers, and moved her bangs out of the way to see her whole face. With a quick slash, he had made an incision along her trachea. Jules wheezed.

The pair of scissors was still lodged in her throat. Tears streamed down her face.

She watched him stare at her while she took her final breath. He pulled out the pair of scissors from her neck. Then wiped the blood from the scissors using Jules’ blue cotton sweater.

He whistled while spinning the pair of scissors in his hands. Once he was at the basement door, he looked back & sighed.

‘‘I guess I’ll have to find another one to join the party. Jules should have at least complimented me on my scissors spinning. Does she know how long it took for me to get it right? How else would I have all these scars on my hands.’’

(Note: inspired by the Michael Myers character. But this guy in this bit uses a pair of scissors to kill his victims. He also speaks/talks more than Myers. Eh, too much actually. A short little take on horror/thriller for now.)

#LETHAL

all rights reserved

21st July, 2020

Too many connections

become baggage

weighing down the soul

until

it becomes necessary to

purge the excess.

My iron will

forges iron blades

to wield upon a tangled mess.

Surveying the land

finding what does not serve

Pruning down to blood and tears.

Snipping ties to my heart.

The scattered cords

rippling loose in the breeze

return to rest

or be reborn elsewhere.

But

my lightened heart

is all the better for it.

rock

paper

scissors

shoot

And the paper beats rock beats scissors beats paper until the game begins anew, children's smiles peeking over small hands in a classroom bathed in pastels and lined with fairy tales, the happy ending just a page away.

bang

The paper beats rock beats scissors beats paper

But what beats a bullet?

bang

and suddenly the happy ending doesn't seem so close and there is blood on the floor but things don't make sense because this place... this place was supposed to be safe.

bang

"Isn't that against the rules, though? There are no guns in rock paper scissors."

"Oh, naive child. Those who make the rules do not care about you."

bang

snip.

have to

let go.

snip.

it's tearing

me apart.

snip.

now

i

will

tear

us

apart,

but cleanly,

with these

shimmering

blades of

steel,

glinting

in the

moonlight.

it didn't

have to end

this way,

we could have

made up,

exchanged

apologies,

forgiven

and

forgotten.

but you

and i

don't work

like that.

we're

clashing ideas,

opposing ideals.

a match

made in

hell.

so now

i'll cut

you away,

little by little,

until one

day,

you

disappear.

The fabric of the universe,

Cut with scissors of time.

The fabric of hate,

Cut with scissors of love.

The fabric of reality,

Cut with scissors of mirrors.

The fabric of death,

Cut with scissors of life.

they sit

innocently

on the edge

of my desk

i try

to ignore them

so i won’t wake up

with burning

regret

you know you shouldn’t

you know you shouldn’t

i say

i hide them

away

so i

won’t have to cover

my scars

in the light of day