Kairosclerosis ✔ [poetry]

carcasses

17

CARCASSES

⸻

i work in a small room

where the walls are red,

and the smooth cement floor and the burning furnace

are red, too.

there are no windows, only a single light bulb

hanging above my head,

blinking, blinking,

to the sound of flies

buzzing, buzzing.

in one corner of the room, stands the long butcher table,

crusted in thick dry blood and flesh,

where you can find preserved corpses of

rats and cockroaches

trapped underneath, fossilised.

the dead are piled up in the other corner of the room.

they used to be in body bags,

cold plastic would crease red lines

across bloated skin and opened mouths

and clawed throats.

nowadays, the bodies are stripped,

naked blood dripping into naked blood,

bared skin melting into bared skin.

whoever at the bottom is drenched stiff

and pitifully soggy.

every morning, green-cladded soldiers come in

to deposit new corpses.

some days, i have weak

men and women, children and toddlers

tangling together like a knot of stillbirth pups.

pathetic little beings that crawled and begged for mercy;

so eager to give away their own family

for a chance at life

so naive to believe life

wouldn't betray them, the same way.

other days, i have strong

men and women, children and toddlers

whose cries and screams

lodged behind gritted teeth and blackened eyes,

stubbed toes and fingers;

vicious brave spirits

dwindled away once physical and mental pain

merged into one.

they fought like hell.

as hard as the hungry flies, and rats, and cockroaches

burrowing in their rotten bone marrows and intestines.

insects and animals and humans

—the weak and the strong,

chittering and buzzing;

trying their best to escape back to the free world.

slamming their heads against the cement walls.

scraping their nails against the cement floor.

clinging to life with all the phantom of their might.

praying to death with all the force of their despair.

the futility of their struggle,

the eventual breakdown,

the idiotic single-minded faith and hope

all lost in the way they lay

under the unblinking lightbulb,

in this small, red room

—tumble and pile on top of each other,

curl up in a heap of skeletal fleshes,

shoved down a burning furnace,

reduced to black charcoal and ash.

all gone, and soon replenished

by other fresh, new corpses in the corner of the room.