Serial Killer

they don’t walk like the rest of us— there’s a rhythm, yes, but it’s off-beat, like jazz played in a padded cell. it starts early—when the dog barked too loud and nobody hugged them after. the world lit its fuse, and turned the other way. they grow quiet in the corners of rooms, watching how the meat falls off the bone, how people talk and never mean it. they learn that silence can be louder than a scream, that control is a scalpel— and god never showed up, to stop one. trophies? souvenirs from where the soul cracked. a button, a tooth, a braid of hair— proof that something existed and bowed before them. the rest of us save postcards. they save reminders that they were finally seen. that someone, for one goddamned second, was real.