My mother said De Goya was not as haunted as Greco,
but all I see are angels made dark, the other a pagan scream.
Maybe she is haunted by deer,
how she hit one with a Volkswagen
or when she slammed the front door so hard the deer head
mounted on wall fell and hit her skull. I can’t count how
many rabbits I killed on the road en route to the Grand Canyon
but they eat their dead. I’m a scavenger now,
everything you see was a human idea, the free pile is magical,
check the neighborhood forum for giveaways or cultivate your own shared hellscape.
My mom said Jim Henson did Dark Crystal and they were all like
it was too dark, so he lightened up, and did Muppets.
My counselor read the poem and said it was the other way around.
My brother likes to go listen to Beatles in the car because it reminds him of growing up.
He hates holidays, doesn’t think you need a reason to come together and celebrate.
But this murderer’s got moxy, like two flies fucking in the trash.
There is no need. Resuscitation is futile.
Nikkin Rader has degrees in poetry, anthropology, philosophy, gender & sexuality, and other humanities and social science. Her works appear in Occulum, Pussy Magic, the Mojave Heart Review, peculiars magazine, littledeath lit, and elsewhere. You can follow her twitter or insta @wecreeptoodeep