My body of skin waxes and wanes
around my true body,
a tender nimbus.
I skitter over the paths and fields,
mumbling to myself like crazy,
mouth full of juicy adjectives
and purple berries.
The townsfolk dive headfirst into the bushes
to get out of my way.
My first death orbits my head,
an ambiguous nimbus,
medallion of my ordeal.
No one crosses that circle.
Having been hanged for something
I never said,
I can now say anything I can say.
Holiness gleams on my dirty fingers,
I eat flowers and dung,
two forms of the same thing, I eat mice
and give thanks, blasphemies
gleam and burst in my wake
like lovely bubbles.
I speak in tongues,
my audience is owls.
My audience is God,
because who the hell else could understand me?
The words boil out of me,
coil after coil of sinuous possibility.
The cosmos unravels from my mouth,
all fullness, all vacancy.
I don’t think so. It was about a woman who was accused of witchcraft and sentenced to die by hanging. She survived the night and in the morning when they cut her down all the villagers were aghast that she was still alive, but she was protected by double-jeopardy and so spent the rest of her days roaming in the wilderness as a mad woman and striking terror into the hearts of passersby.
Basically, she wasn’t a witch before they accused her and tried to execute her, but her experience over a night of hanging, near death, turned her into one.
Hence it was my response to “If you’re already finding out, then you might as well start fucking around.”
Might as well start fucking around then.
Has sex one time, contracts both HIV through a faulty condom and herpes because condoms can’t protect against it. *Hangs head, goes home
Bad Luck Brian
Luna?
Margaret Atwood
She’s talking about the moon though, yeah?
I don’t think so. It was about a woman who was accused of witchcraft and sentenced to die by hanging. She survived the night and in the morning when they cut her down all the villagers were aghast that she was still alive, but she was protected by double-jeopardy and so spent the rest of her days roaming in the wilderness as a mad woman and striking terror into the hearts of passersby.
Basically, she wasn’t a witch before they accused her and tried to execute her, but her experience over a night of hanging, near death, turned her into one.
Hence it was my response to “If you’re already finding out, then you might as well start fucking around.”
Oh wow, that’s a sad story that I haven’t read. Thanks for explaining it to me.
The short story is titled Half-Hanged Mary if you care to read the full thing. It’s based on a true story about a woman named Mary Webster
Thanks, but I think I’ll stick to your excellent synopsis. Too disturbing and probably like reading Frankenstein. I’m surprised it isn’t a movie.