KILLING THE MONSTERS
Emily Duff
I wish I knew before
That revealing my pride
Was more than wading
Past dresses and swimwear
I’ve got a slippery grip
On a blood-stained knife
It flirts with gravity
Still angled at the corpse on the floor
I didn’t know of these guards
Protecting the door
Nor of their hollow eyes or claws
Nor of the fight they would cause
My spiking adrenaline aborts
Leaving shivers in my veins
They form a hunting party
From doubt and regret
Pounding in my head
My desire to know
What it’s like to be out—
Side, under the sun subsides
The price: too high
My freedoms: undefined
There is no relief in murder
Inside is safe
Inside doesn’t leave
Bloody footprints
Trailing over the threshold
Inside leaves
No bodies to dispose of
*
Inside is also a coffin
Cotton shirts that once embraced
Me, now a source of strangulation,
Fabrications force-fed like
They’re evocations of my life
Those lies become
Ten-tonne plates pressed
Against my chest
Sinking to the floor
All I want
Is to float to the surface
Breathe
Breathe
I have already served my audience
Meals of diluted truths
To make the light brighter
The change from darkness
More moderated
Less shock shinning back
When I step out—
Breathe
Their death is a price too expensive
But it’s what you demand
Hoping I can’t pay
Hoping I’ll stay
Exactly where I am
Hidden
Not telling
Not asking
Swept under the rug
While you pray me away
Praying I’ll go extinct
A species scared to death
Explains all the skeletons in closets
Breathe
Past mistakes awake
Only fools wield knives into battle
My armoury is stocked
A battle-axe drops and lands
Perfectly weighted in my hand
There is no relief in murder
But it turns slaughter into freedom
And creates comfort from carnage
And in the end
I’m out
Standing under the sun
Quickly crusting blood
Stains my nail beds, but
A rain shower relieves
Other bloody remnants
And throws a rainbow
Across the sky
Emily Duff is a budding writer from Sydney who finds her inspiration in new experiences and travel. She is a writer of poetry and short stories with a focus on romance and social-political themes. Her poem Killing the Monsters was long-listed for the Macquarie University Future Leaders Prize in 2022.
