a blunt weapon

There was a time when he’d
fear nothing more
than the bluntness of the
empty bottle

his torment
his nightmare, his hell

The bottle would be
all right as long as it stayed full
It was like Lucifer before the fall

Oh, but once it emptied
then it would change completely
Then he’d see father’s grip
reverse on its neck
and turn it into a blunt weapon
that delivered its fair share
of bruises and scabs on the scalp

It never broke
like in the movies
but it surely hit harder than wood

But in the end
after all those years of standing
in its greenish shadow
he found himself thanking the bottle

It’s simple
What you don’t pick up
you don’t end up holding

He never touched a beer in his life

and certainly didn’t use
the bottle as a blunt weapon
against anybody

not even against his own father
as revenge

The cleaver was far
more effective

Pour the Whiskey Over My Heart and Set It On Fire

FREE E-BOOK

26 February 2021 52

The Boy Who Ate Flowers by Bogdan Dragos

He ate flowers. this mentally challenged boy from the countryside I used to watch him in the fields when I visited my grandparents as a kid He was like an exotic thing a wild beast chasing static pray They had no chance, the flowers he would assault them with a killer’s smile, frothing, and […]

The Boy Who Ate Flowers by Bogdan Dragos

24 February 2021 16

to choose the bottle

there are many reasons a woman
can say her final
goodbye to you
 
and somehow they
all feel
different
 
He supposed the worst of all
had to be when
her final goodbye is
influenced by another man
 
made sense
 
but that wasn't his case
Also he was too drunk
to think
straight now. And in too much
pain
 
“It's the final goodbye,” she had
said. “You chose the bottle
over me, now live
with the bottle. Goodbye.”
 
Goddammit, this
really hurt
His dick was only getting harder
and more blue
stuck in the mouth
of the bottle
 
Yet still, through all the
pain and the
dizziness he reached for the
phone and called her.
He said, “Hey, I just want you
to know that… It was
you I had in mind when I did it.
I did it while thinking
of you, love.”
 
She hung up

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21 February 2021 22

Love letter by Bogdan Dragos

Gobblers & Masticadores

 Usually it was after the second pack of smokes that inspiration came into his soul but today it came after the second cigarette   And when inspiration hit he'd grab the paper and pen and write letters old style   He was a romantic   My love, he wrote, this is the 272nd letter I write you, and its subject will be the idea of impossibility. I think impossibility is highly subjective, my love. I for one can climb Mount Everest in my shorts if I want to, but one thing I'll never ever do is get over you. I dream you every night. Every. Damn. Night. And I wake up and grab the dress you left behind and I wrap its strap around my penis like one of those rubber rings meant to make you last super long. I've been doing it for… a long time, love. Believe me…

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17 February 2021 15

a distracted dreamer

what else to do when
the rain falls so heavy
against the window
outside?
 
Get melancholic
get poetic
have a drink
have another
 
close and then lock the door
to your room
and don't listen to
the voices coming
from outside
They want to distract you
They don't want you
to be successful
and make it in
life
 
They're all haters
 
He covered his ears
and squinted his eyes at the
computer screen
doing his best to block out
the negativity that came
from beyond the door
 
“I can't get up!” the voice
croaked. “Come help me. I can't
get up.” And then with
a cry, “Please!”
 
“Shut the fuck up, grandma!
I'm trying to
write in here. Jesus Christ, I'm
trying to make
it big, don't you understand?
For fuck's sake now.”
 
He had also sent a manuscript
to a potential
publisher and was waiting for
a reply. It's been
two days already

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16 February 2021 50

Interview with Author and Poet Bogdan Dragos

The Chamber Magazine

Biography:

I was born in 1992 in Romania and had a happy childhood until I went to school. I never had an answer to the question “What would you like to become when you grow up?” and still don’t. But I was lucky enough, after college, to land a job as a dispatcher at a gambling company. There, I spend 12 hours alone in the office (day and night shifts) supervising casinos through CCTV cameras. I like to think I learned a lot about humanity from this. But I also learned a lot about myself. It’s also where I started writing.biog

What is your greatest accomplishment as a writer so far?
That’ll be the publication of my poetry chapbook, “Pour The Whiskey Over My Heart And Set It On Fire”. In August 2020 I found myself with quite a bunch of poems and no audience, so I started submitting a…

View original post 557 more words

12 February 2021 25

the female assassin

the ashtray was looking more
and more
like a sick hedgehog
  
and her yellowed fingers
added one more quill to it
  
she sat back in her chair
  
work wasn't in the best of stages lately and
her office looked like a junkie's
trailer. You could
scrape the nicotine
off the walls. In fact, she
would get nicotine under her nails if she
just scratched her skin
anywhere
  
But otherwise she was
a beauty
and that was a problem. Beautiful
women have the worst
luck in marriages
  
The husband left and the two girls went
with him
They were sick and tired of her
habit to consume more cigarette smoke than
oxygen
  
And drinking was also a problem
though not nearly
as big
  
The worst drinking has ever done to her
was to make her lose
the driving license which she never
bothered to take back
  
The real problem was,
as always,
a lack of money. If the damn phone didn't
ring soon
she would have to kill someone
for a pack of cigarettes
  
Assuming she could still
kill
someone with her body rotting from the
inside. She was fine with
breast cancer
but now lung cancer joined too
and it was by far nastier
  
Still
that was all right
It doesn't take a healthy body to pull
a trigger
  
And speaking of triggers
She opened a drawer in her desk
took out the gun
studied it
  
Not loaded
  
She browsed through the drawer
  
Only one bullet left. One single bullet.
These things cost money
too
  
Damn it
  
But it's like they said back in
the mercenary camp
The last bullet is always preserved to be
used on the self
  
She loaded the bullet into the
gun
  
A life lived well is one
lived without regrets and without
ever asking for mercy
or feeling sorry for yourself
  
At 39
she had that. There was nothing
else to be taken
away from it
  
She put the gun to her
temple
  
Smiled
  
"Except for a final smoke."

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8 February 2021 59

heavy cross, tight shackle by Bogdan Dragos

Gobblers & Masticadores

 The house doesn't feel like home, mother. Not since you left for the other world after father left for another house from outside town   Now there's just me here. And my older brother who is younger than me mentally and will remain so for the rest of his life He still hears whispers coming from every dark corner of the house and because of this our electric bill is enormous   I can no longer take this   I'm not strong enough   I'm not willing enough   This cross is too damn heavy. It's breaking my back, breaking my soul   I want to get a better job and eventually a car and a wife and start a family   I can't do that while taking care of my troubled brother   I quit.   Tonight I will make his nightmares come true The electricity will go out…

View original post 98 more words