Bones. Liz's pick.

Bones
Eyes open to a dark room
Mouth full of gauze, unable to speak
I find myself saran wrapped tightly to an office table
The walls draped neatly in plastic sheets
All around me; a collage of macabre
Faces of people I knew without knowing
People whose blood I’d spilled to feed my appetite
A lust for blood that is all too insatiable
Now I find myself…here
Helpless
A victim
In walks a man, my captor
Dressed in a transparent poncho
He is clean, perfectly clean
Unscathed as a patron saint
He leans in close as his right hand produces a scalpel
I wince as he draws a crimson line across my cheek
He places a drop of my blood on a glass microscope slide
A sick little souvenir from the event yet to ensue
“I am going to filet your body down to the very bones”
The words calmly fall from his lips
“You are going to feel what they felt and scream like they screamed”
I was astonished by the steadiness of his voice
No inflection in his tone; calm, steady as a flat-line
His collectedness assured me that this was not his first time
He was too composed, too organized to be a novice
He was too much like me
And yet I was the one on the carving table
Murderers never worry about being murdered
And under the umbrella of that assumption I became all too comfortable
I could not slake the need to feed my disease
So killing became a constant
A mundane task in which I got sloppy, jaded, just fuckin lazy
Consequently, the classic “predator becomes prey” phrase applies
He’s capitalized on my mistakes
He knew the secrets I tried to keep, he knew the monster inside
And his job is to rid the world of monsters, even though he himself is a monster
But…
No one cares if a killer kills a killer
With him justice will not be clean or swift
No, he prefers slow and nasty
I am his frog bathed in formaldehyde; his anatomy experiment
He will savor this as much as I would have
We are truly two of a kind
With a gloved hand he removes the gauze to grant me my last words spoken
All I manage to do is ask “Who are you?”
My eyes stretch and widen in fear as he pulls the trigger of a surgical saw
He coldly replies “My friends call me Dex, but you can call me Mr. Morgan”

-Ryan Baker


The character "Dex" is based on the character "Dexter" from the Showtime Series "Dexter". This character was respectfully borrowed for this piece.

Bones
Won't slaughter without a little laughter,
Don't preach to me disaster.
Can't conquer the world if we're all captured.
We are God on earth,
Bred to bring control to chaos.
Don't confuse us with a pack of rabid beasts.
Wolves only kill what they can eat.
We raze the land and smile with our sharp teeth.
Our castles cast shadows from the hill.
We've paved the paths with broken bones.
And withered mountains to dust and stones.
Morals aren't an issue when we know we're right.
Don't like the course?
Then walk away.
The process will not change,
Until silence is what remains.
-Tylor Sherman


Bones.

I used to think I'd die at thirty two.
no kids.
no you.
Something i did changed my course.
Maybe it wasn't checking the locks three times
or filling up at pump four.
I still think I will die first
a little morbid.
but true.
And when I do,
I hope they dig up my bones
and build a bed for you.

-Shannon Masayo