(Bone Drum previously appeared in The Dream People: Screaming Riffs edition)
If you cut me open from
chin to pelvis,
crack my skull,
slice wide my arms
and legs.
If you snip out my
organs one by one
so my heart could no longer pound for you
so my lungs could no longer breathe and gasp for you
so my stomach could no longer hunger for you
so my brain could no longer love and lust for you
so my muscles could no longer tense and thrust for you.
If you boiled what was left.
Boiled my body
’til the last of the tendons
and tissue and earthly flesh
was worn from bone
– smooth –
then I’d be the sum of every
human creature and the sum of none at all.
However, if you picked up one of those bones
and struck it against a drum,
you would see that even then
I would create music,
art, a beat that can entrance
the living to dance to it.
It was born in my bones.
If you cut me open from
chin to pelvis,
crack my skull,
slice wide my arms
and legs.
If you snip out my
organs one by one,
you would see that
you would feel that
you would know that too.
***
Monica S. Kuebler has spent the last twenty-plus years wearing a variety of editorial hats at Rue Morgue magazine, for whom she penned Rue Morgue Library #3: Weird Stats and Morbid Facts. She also writes poetry and monster stories; her young adult vampire serial ‒ which began with Bleeder (Blood Magic, Book 1) ‒ can be read at Wattpad.com. She completed her first novel for adult readers during the pandemic lockdown.
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