mutilate ovenbird He’s eating a salad from a take out container with a plastic lid. The lid is cracked and a sharp blade of polyethylene stands tall in the fluorescent gloaming. He leans forward to stab at limp lettuce and the makeshift scalpel slips under the flesh of his cheek just beside his worming lips. Pain capsizes his pupils. He lifts his left hand to the flap of his face and pulls at it like a hangnail. His skin peels back, all the way to the ridge of bone beneath his eye while blood and screams make a raging river of his clavicle. You’re not here to cover my eyes, so I stare in paralyzed wonder. I try to make-believe that your hands hover between me and all the world’s horror but you’re far away and you can’t hear me choking on your name. 260907 what's it to you? who go blather from