He Knows What He Wants

 

Zvi A. Sesling

 

          “So Sam, when did all this start?”

          “I guess around third or fourth grade Dr. Charlton.”

          “And what got you started?”

          “Well, mother once said a cat scratched my face and that’s why I have all these scars. One day this stray cat wandered into our yard, I tried to choke it but didn’t have the strength, it scratched my arm and ran off.  I tried getting a quail and then a dog with my bow and arrow, but I was ten years-old and, of course, missed both times.”

          “It seems you are not successful at most things like school and work either.”

          “Well, Doc, when I was seventeen I took Janey Lawson out on a date and before going home I tried kissing her, but she resisted so I strangled her and dumped her in Image Lake with some rocks tied to her. They never found her. I claimed I was in bed all of the night. They never could pin it on me.”

          “No remorse Sam?”

          “Maybe a few minutes. But then a few days later, Charlie Cheever bullied me at work, so I followed him a few blocks and came up behind him and stabbed him with the knife I’d stolen from his father’s hardware store. Got him enough times to finish him. Poetic justice, huh, with a knife from his father’s hardware store”

          “And that was your first? Oh no, Janey Lawson, remember?”

          “Of course, but how many notches do you have on your belt?”

          “Probably fifteen, Doc. Usually hitchhikers or street walkers, men who are scumbags and women who are whores. But I’ve enough of that kind.  My next thing is shrinks, and I hope to at least get one before they inject me.”

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     Zvi A. Sesling, Brookline, MA Poet Laureate (2017-2020), has published numerous poems and flash/micro fiction and won international prizes. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he has published four volumes and three chapbooks of poetry. His flash fiction book is Secret Behind the Gate. He lives in Brookline, MA. with his wife Susan J. Dechter.

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     Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Ángeles. His artwork has appeared over the years in Medusa’s Kitchen, Nerve Cowboy, The Dope Fiend Daily, and Rogue Wolf Press, Venus in Scorpio Poetry E-Zine.