Armchair Slasher

[heslopian]

Daylight shots of hanging bones. Wire baskets filled with skulls,
a clucking chicken in a cage suspended from the roof.
Sunbeams catch the dust. The girl's a good screamer;
tight red hot pants, flowing hair, she embodies teenage love
below the Woodstock sky. After he catches her in his front room

one of the killers sticks her on a cold, shining meat hook.
The second to die in the lonely farmhouse, years of memories
are wiped; things she planned one day to tell her children
now forgot. More deaths will come, followed by a final girl
who escapes covered in blood, her limbs almost stiff,

throat hoarse with screaming. To read her script must be
a treat: Make as much noise as you can. Nothing else
encourages my nihilistic side like a slasher film.
They begin with an image of youth, laughter and sunlight
through hair, making love, girls who like astrology,

tolerant boyfriends. (Straightaway I'm picturing
the power tools and spleens.) It's as though
they expected to be in a plot, but thought it would be
something light; a coming-of age-story, perhaps.
They'll never grow old now. I rewind the tape.