By Gabrielle Munslow
I don’t want to be beautiful.
I want to be authentic.
I don’t want to stun—
I want to short-circuit your circuitry,
make your jaw twitch like faulty wiring.
I want to be the rain that soaks right through you,
not the pitter-patter polite raindrops.
I don’t want the rainbow.
I want the rust-tinted rain,
orange rivulets on a guttered street,
the kind that eats through tin roofs
and leaves silence dripping.
I want the quiet lull,
the intake before the exhale,
the static hiss between lost radio stations.
The passion.
The wildflowers.
The storm.
The reckoning.
Mud pools from my eyes—
rust tears, corroding the sockets.
They streak my face,
leaving iron-taste trails
you can smell before you see.
Writhing on the floor,
tearing at my hair,
then laughing maniacally.
My mouth a wall,
my eyes a veil.
My façade is welded on—
it keeps them out,
but it keeps the smoke in.
So my mask sinks into my soul.
My eyes—glass marbles—
they roll along.
I’m a metronome,
jaw snapping shut on every second.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Then silence,
like a wire cut.
I am animatronic,
spilled into human form—
wires weeping,
hydraulics twitching,
rust grinding the joints.
I am the Antikythera mechanism:
ancient and intricate,
predicting storms
no one sees coming.
But the gears slip.
Rust chews the sockets.
Skin tangles in the teeth.
A jaw clicks, clicks,
then tears loose.
Time stutters—
tick / tick /
heartbeat /
nothing.
