25th and Cedar & decomposer//Michaela Mayer

25th and Cedar

a flickering, like fluorescence gone wrong:
harsh light on the face blinking
with the manic speed of a turn signal,

the regular, maddening rhythm of a car alarm;
your record with its needle stuck
in one terrible, humming groove.

and you, man of rumors, wrapped in the ratty
jacket of graffiti scrawled crudely
across the clapboard of your historic home—

it says more about me that I imagine you
this way, buzzed and paranoid and crazy.
lucid insanity could stalk the halls of your brain

for all I know. hell—your unasked-for exhibitionism
suggests something callous and cruel in you,
most cops rule, demon rat whore,

the white man self-christening mudboy slim;
if we were to meet, I would hate your guts. still,
here, I fear kinship with your contemptible

menace, the way my father’s crooked smirk
overlays my smile in the mirror—
the way better politics can mask the same festering

interior. it isn’t the exact self-sickness
that drove Sufjan to claim a serial killer;
not my queerness but my own crazy,

wrapped in cling film and placed quietly
in the fridge to rot beside the produce.
there is no easy way to end this. I am ashamed

as Beau, reified by quiet sidelong glances,
by rolled eyes, complicity. beneath the greying porch
my thoughts sprout like frightened weeds.

decomposer

in the raptor walk, a girl overtaken by her own
unbecoming. the black vulture’s wings outstretched
to catch the sun. an oncoming throng of raucous
boys unsettle, threaten to sicken the pair’s stomachs,
and she begins to melt into the bird, skin merging
with stiff feathers. her legs the vulture’s legs,
black and scabrous. her arms the vulture’s wings.
her head the vulture’s head, until there is nothing
human left, only a large dark scavenger, eater of carrion,
its dark grey beak hooked like an overgrown talon.

Michaela Mayer (she/her) is a neuroqueer writer who has followed a trajectory southward from Maryland, to Virginia, to North Carolina, not counting random travels. On one side, her family history is Southern Gothic; on the other, her forebears are Lovecraftian in their northern secrecy, peculiarity, and professional chilliness. She writes poetry, the occasional essay, and can be found on Instagram under the handle @mswannmayer55 or Bluesky @eurydicespeaks.bsky.social. Her works have been previously published in multiple online journals, and she has a PDF chapbook out with Fahmidan.