It reaches his shoulder, enlarged, rat-sized.
He caresses his shriveled mother’s forehead,
Wheezes through a mouth she stitched to keep his demons in
since pregnancy, dark magic sloshed inside her womb,
after the birth it overflowed,
but her belly remained bloated for a month.
the boy struggled to make her proud,
she called him blightful spawn and tightened a leash around his throat.
sun deprived, sick of gruel, starved of play,
he touched the cords that bruised his skin
knots inflated, then unraveled.
seeking to join the start of spring,
at tag he neck-smacked the neighbor’s kid,
so its skull ballooned until, sky-wandering,
untethered from the spine.
The spider skitters across his face; enwrapping cheeks with fingers needle-thin
this time she shackled him with chain,
ignoring his pleas, his promise that he
only meant to be a kid that does kid things
his mother assumed his words were cursed
did not suspect the touch
boy-skin inflated Mother’s sewing fingers as the needle worked his lips
swollen, tumor-like her fingers siphoned blood
shrinking the rest of her dry
teeth dropped, cavities turned
to bug nests
A tear floods to a waterfall down his cheek,
Spraying his mother’s corpse amidst chain fragments
If his love is unrequited, maybe his fear won’t be
His new arachnid friend settles on his scalp
Enlarged again, crown-sized
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Akis Linardos is a writer of bizarre things, a biomedical AI scientist, and maybe human. He’s also a Greek that lived across the globe and eventually plans to return to his cave in Crete, to write what words of beauty he can until the self-destructing empires of the world implode. Find his words at Apex, Strange Horizons, Uncharted, Heartlines Spec, and visit his lair for more: linktr.ee/akislinardos. |