The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Price of Words
by Amy Zoellers 

The psycho’s poetry was florid,

too careful, labored-over in ten-dollar words

(inflation)

inflated. Dancing on tiptoe.

Cumbersome to the likes of me.

.

“I would least be an academic!” I crowed,

good sense and cooing tactics

all poured out the window

of the stained and sour motel room

where he now loomed with an axe.

.

Where I’d brought a new bottle of apricot brandy

to take stock of my life

.

a life of gelatin salads and fifty-cent words

of cherry cola and AquaNet.

A life with too little to prove.

“I need poetry that sings fire!” I spat.

.

And he chopped me for it,

for my sass

and for other unsound reasons

of his own—

.

relegating my

mundanity-glorifying

big fat mouth

to the ghost world

.

where now I wisp and whisper

my dimestore charms and

gumball-machine litanies

to other seekers,

bones and flesh,

poets all.

.

Fiction © Copyright Amy Zoellers
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

More from Amy Zoellers:

Ordeal in French Lipstick

Art! Fun!! Poetry and song! Portraits, dolls, prints, jewelry… and so much more! Find Amy on Instagram:  Hipness and Outrage