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July 29, 2022
By Emily Power
All

Everyone is scared of the guillotine these days

 

But if I had that kind of money, let me tell you –

I’d burn it. A new Dior gown every morning.

A different pool boy every afternoon. You bourgeois folk

and your mid-century shite – you’ll never get it,

sucking marrow from warm bones all light and delicate.

Me, I’d gorge. Retch and Retch and Oh God, Oh Christ, Oh no!

Not Cabernet and teeth on the new marble tiles!

Well, tough luck. Was born slick and red and I’ll die slick and red.

If I get my hands on something shiny, I’ll stick it into every last

orifice I can find. No more threadbare blankets or wellingtons,

no pale cowards for me. I’d have statues made in my likeness,

enough milk-eyed monuments to form a vast white sea.

If I had that kind of money, let me tell you –

I’d fuck the guillotine. ∎

 

Words by Emily Power. Art by Rachel Jung.

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Poetry/visceral
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