The Bayou
The wails of a lonely banjo woke the candles.
Blinking
White
Inferno
Ripple
The
Firmament.
BaYOU sirens
trudging through the mud.
Who are we
To disturb strings.
Hands climb the rainbow water. Smearing oil on the effluent. Fingers clutch the muddy sticks, demanding the swamp vomit. Bubbling mud pumped bodies and bicycles on wet
grass. The newborn corpse wrestled itself,
snapping its roots.
The sap of a stumbling tree drips down its nail.
Extending its branches, it lunges for the bike.
Peeling the wheel, mauling the strings.
SNAP
Haze pours from the wires, drowning the string within.
The newborn plunges itself in the oil, yearning to breathe.
Drowning never works.
The newborn inflated and popped from the water, bearing
His
Fathers
Design.
The beating of wet boots drums through the bog. The baYOU smells the fruit. Charcoal
Magnolias
Crackling within the steel evergreen.
The newborns tender skin is melting. Weeping could be seen from above. Reaching down to the reptile, slumbering below the waste. The newborn stands, but cannot move. Its legs are melting in place, with tunnels formed through the knees. Wax drips down the eyes, burning sap suffocates the leaves on his nose. He tries to howl for his father, but his wooden teeth grew their roots, wiring him shut. The caretaker steps out—a siren, cloaked in black, without face.
the lizard broke the womb
It stretched its shapeless body, igniting the string in his mind. Rainbow wildfire sizzles down the candled corpse. Its dripping skin protruded the nails, digging roots deep below the mud. Chaining the reptile in death.
Struggling
Dropping
It let go
Surrendering
The
Banjo
Below
The
Rock.
AUTHORS NOTE:
Figured I’d treat yall to a spontaneous post before me and Stefan Baciu beat you to death soon. Enjoy




This was hallucinatory. And frightening. I like this line: the lizard broke the womb. It comes from nowhere
very much enjoyed this, felt like descending.