Not everything has to be about you.

       It’s not personal, you say, but it’s been a lot. You’re so inevitable. I’m sick of you, slinking in uninvited on fishnet legs, stilettos clinking. Your teeth click clacking, your clove and bone perfume casting a voodoo pall. All those funerals, the missed work days, the congealing casseroles—because of you. Condolences dribbling from my mouth. Do I order flowers again, or those face-sized cookies?      

       When I was eleven, you took Grandpa Bert. I remember him propped in his colossal La-Z-Boy, wearing a stained, half-zipped jumpsuit. My wife, passed, he moaned into his Jack Daniels, My friends, dead. My life, over. He survived Pearl Harbor, speeding a motorbike across the base, the low-flying kamikaze so close, Bert could see the pilot’s grin. But years later, Grandpa couldn’t outrun you. You crawled into bed with him, working him over, wearing him out. Paralyzing him. Kept him there for three days before family found him. And I saw you, sliding half-dressed, your lace nightie in your hand, out the back door.

      Once we were acquainted, my fre-nemy, you showed up constantly. Sashaying towards me, dressed to kill in a black satin sheath, your steak tartare breath smogging the air. Never missing an opportunity to self-promote. Spare me those school shootings—the Good, dying young. You’re killing us with these deaths.

      When I was thirty, you seduced my father—he wasn’t an easy man, but he was Dad. Giving him ideas about how to finish himself—speeding car, handgun, pills. Pulling him towards your cleavage, sniffing him, your mouth on his mouth. Snatching his breath away.

       Next, you came for my big sister—that was too much. Crept into the hospital while she was having a routine procedure. Surprise! You lassoed her with your leather belt, pulling her into your bony glory. You opened your robe, your limbs, your abyss. Your cigarette fingers plied the folds of her clothes, eyes, skin, leaving her helpless, bleeding into her own lung. Have you no heart? Finally, her exhausted death rattle in that bleached hospital room. Me, alone.

       Listen, would it kill you to take a day off? Would someone die if you skipped work? One after the next—overkill. Scaring the hell out of us when you show your chiseled face. Bringing down the party. We can’t wipe you out. You look like everyone, you look like no one. You remind me of that old creep who hung round our playground when I was eight, eyeing our short legs. Greedy and relentless, grabbing anyone, anytime. Picking us off, one by one. Nobody gets out alive, right? Get lost. Get a hobby. Target practice on dummies. Disappear.

     But you always come back, your smell of bodies, of crevices, preceding you. You slay me. Shimmying in black peekaboo silk, tangoing center stage, looking for a new partner. Timeless. I gasp, watch to see what you’ll do next—who you’ll do next. I don’t wanna lie with you, don’t wanna catch my death. Coming, gunning for me, working your rotten magic, claws tightening round my guts. My heart galloping, then slowing, the walls of the building rasping, breathing in and out, contracting like the mother who birthed me—but wait, she’s dead too—pressing, flattening me.

     You knock me out. I’m only human after all.

About the author:

Part of our Halloween 2025 Issue. New stories, poems, and essays now through October 31, 2025.

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