Horror Movies

 
The great theme of horror movies is
you are going to die soon & you’re NOT going to like it…….
someone’s going to confiscate your blood
or forbid you from breathing……………………………………………………………which is sad
with a bag or doubleknife
in an IKEA casket factory
or              running through the desert, stars bristling overhead

Horror Movies
the men I love are forever trying to get me to watch them
they insist upon their mini frights
but I don’t……………..care
It makes me bored to be so scared
like going to a high school theatre fundraiser………………………..for murder
or being robbed at gunpoint by Gore Vidal
& the moral of the story is always: boo!

For all I care the missing children may remain IN the rainwater tank
infusing the communal water supply with their many idiosyncratic flavours
for all I care the chainsaws can stay in their chainsaw….racks
and the beautiful women can go free!
and embark upon their lives
with………….unmutilated torsos and…………good intentions

In horror movies nobody ever has sex, and if they do it’s all –
[out of tune music box begins to play]
in a graveyard
or a broken down car on the edge of the highway             
while the black pines shiver around them
Disgruntled hoteliers, psychiatrists gone bad, steamplant boiler maintainers
housewives and larger than normal sharks
children too
with their………………………burgeoning intellects
and their…………..physical vulnerabilities
It’s not only that I don’t like being scared
I just don’t understand the point
in watching someone almost getting dead for two hours
I’m so bored of watching Nicole Kidman strangle her historically accurate children to death
I’m so bored of walking around with this handbag made from human skin
It’s like: imagine living in a world where women and children murdered people at the same rate as adult men!
As a child my greatest fear was being savagely chopped to death by an axe
until I learned to relax and enjoy my murder
the silver wink of a madman’s blade
melting like sunlight through my head
 
 
 
Hera Lindsay Bird is a poet from Wellington. Her debut self-titled collection was published with Victoria University Press in 2016.