about the author
Rich Larson was born in West Africa, has studied in Rhode Island, and at twenty-one now lives in Edmonton, Alberta, where he was a recent semifinalist for the Norman Mailer Poetry Prize and Pushcart Prize nominee. In 2011 his novel, “Devolution,” was a finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. His short work and poetry have since appeared in Word Riot, > kill author, Bartleby Snopes, Monkeybicycle, Prick of the Spindle, DSF, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and many others. His self-published work can be found at amazon.com/author/richlarson.
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Hunger Games
Rich Larson
Alternative content
Make my spine into scalpels and honeycomb my bones, carve me like Pygmalion, hips bleak planes, slide
helium through my veins, scoop chub from cheek, whittle me down, perfection is
Hold tight behind my belly, like a fist like a stitched cyanide pill, make my ribs a rosary for pianist fingers
that clopped too heavy on the ebony keys, I’ll feel them when I see perfection is not
Show me to Them in angles, in beautiful vectors, the fuckers with fat blooming over elastic, peeping out
of arm-holes, show them their sins dragging bloat onto the bus,
stumping down the street, nothing left
to add
Stretch me brittle, extend the tendons between my body and my mirror, make me a temple, no,
cathedral: sharp spires and cavernous spaces, vaulted and haunted, make me less, make me perfection
is when there is nothing left to take away.