Wick of a Prayer by Brantlee Reid

I have a boyfriend now, Cory Christopherson; he claims to be a serial killer. He said I’d be his last victim before he kills himself. I dig it.

He arrived at my flat with a fistful of saran-wrapped Chiva, and before I could fasten the spliced rubber band around my bicep, he climbed onto me with no time wasted. I moaned in turn but stared elsewhere. The only lust I felt ached beneath the surface of my blotched skin. Finally he came, and I went to the nightstand, lighter in hand, and bent the spoon’s neck.

Together in bed, we lay until the next day. When the sun tapped my eyelids apart, I sat up first and slowly. Lotaburger wrappers littered the floor in abundant company of shed clothing and overturned chairs and still-lit saint candles. Down again I wilted, Cory’s eyes now open upon mine.

He told me my eyes were like black coffee, that he couldn’t take them wholly but in sips. That’s not what my mother thinks, I thought as I ran my clammy fingertips along my forehead just to make sure the brand of her crucifix wasn’t still there.

I retrieved the last cigarette in the pack with my cracked lips, leaning into Saint Peter for a light.

Brantlee is an art student in Santa Fe who enjoys exploring Mother Earth, Taco Bell, and writing things her parents can’t brag about to anyone.

 

 

 

STORY IMAGE CREDIT: Flickr Creative Commons/Margarita Olvera Monterd