I stand in a place where sin fell. Where typed-up humanity got rewritten. A machete-draft you only read once. Because paper ideology doesn’t protect anyone.
I won’t tell you my name but it ended with—WAR. I always had a conflict in me. Maybe that’s why they picked me. I was a shape-shifter. Not the kind you think. Morals shift in all of us. They change when money hits your palm.
Some were too smart for blood. We used words to shake them up. Then break them. Like a piggy bank. Death became a business partner. The world’s biggest capitalist. There’s a killing to be made.
But there is something in me that even death is afraid of.
Erik Hofstatter’s Pain Is a Chain. Move, and I’ll Hear You is a lyrical exploration of ghost autopsy, available from Aqueduct Press as part of their Conversation Pieces series on 15 July. Enter the draw for a signed copy. Your email will be added to our mailing list.
