The Mine Was Shut Down
After the Bodies Were Discovered

12:53 AM: They began by jabbing tiny pins into my feet.

Within that exact span of sixty melting seconds,

I slowly began to forget my mother’s name,

Letter by letter.

Before the new hour I stopped feeling the jagged daggers

I realized I had been transported

I was spinning in a vintage microwave,

with an alarm like a Hollywood fade-out.

Force your hooks into their backs

Drag them through the mine cart shafts

Swallow them like an impressionable teenager

with the belly of a whale and the mind of a goldfish

and a clockwork craving for "whatever they're having."

The last of their words remained scattered in ink

Across the skin-toned canvas.

My first attempt at breaking something beautiful

began as a foolish mistake,

After logic has been removed from their memory,

The miners go back to work