Costume Shopping

Toothpaste splatters like blood across my mouth.

I bare my teeth, looking for missed morsels before

spitting and returning my gaze to the mirror.

I can’t make eye contact with myself, not really.

The harder I look, the closer I push

my face towards the glass,

the less I recognize what is staring back.

Sweat beads across my hairline.

I widen my eyes, raise my eyebrows,

smile with teeth, smile without. I can’t help

but shake my head at the imposter in the mirror.

Close, but not quite. I’m smarter than they think.

I know I'm being watched.

It’s late October and the jack-o-lanterns

mock me with their smiles. It’s unfair,

how pumpkins get to change their faces each year.

I bet they aren’t watched. But I laugh at them,

snickering back at me, because they

will shortly be rotten. Sunken and shriveled,

their decay will be visible, my rotting insides won’t.

I know I could be dead soon, but not that soon.

Not as quickly as the leaves that scream with each step

I take, crushing them to pieces. Their vivid green of life

replaced with the dull brown of inescapable death.

I, too, fear the cold. It’s much harder to escape

when it’s below zero.

Tomorrow is Halloween.

I have yet to find a fitting costume.

It is the only day, my only chance.

I wait until it’s dark before I creep below window sills,

peeking into bedrooms through slits in the blinds,

gaps in the curtains. At the thirteenth house,

I find what I’m looking for.

Through the open kitchen window

I slink, shrouded in shadow, towards the bedroom.

There she lays, her chest rising and falling

in the pale moonlight. Her small frame

covered in sheets like a corpse,

A perfectly sized body with flawless skin.

I reach the bed, thrust my hand forward,

and dig my nails into her chubby cheek

until blood trickles, gushes, pools.

She screams and pleads; I yank and pull.

Her skin peels away like gum from the ground,

stuck on a shoe. I can feel her cheek’s inner flesh,

stretching until it comes free. I step into her organ,

mold it to mine and look in her- my- bedroom mirror.

The loose flesh hangs in tatters, but I am a new person.

Whoever watches me in passing reflections,

Whoever stares back at me when it's not myself, will be

oblivious, until the blood slick skin begins to slide.

The escape is momentary, but I have plans to make it last.