all the salt #37

criminal enough to be bright amidst the dead i turned my fists into rome so i could stick in the fire without regretting the burns i smiled the way deposed kings smile i knew the execution would be delayed as long as my body gave other people pleasure i’ve left my body here to give other people pleasure the coal they choose is the coal they choose to live with my body blackens with intent before the screaming can begin
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all the salt #39

let the weird and raw people that can refuse to touch the skin of our milquetoast solutions for this world keep their disgust as a pillar for the next world if they vomit at the sight of us then we know they might be able to give us a new world

Darren C. Demaree is the author of fourteen poetry collections, most recently “Unfinished Murder Ballads”, (October 2020, Backlash Press). He is the recipient of a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louis Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.