Clip off a digit for every time you’ve been cruel.
Secateurs, scissors. A bit blunt. Make it hurt…
Take a corkscrew to each knee for every hard word.
Unscrew, re-insert. Count them, more, much more than two.
A carving knife to the flesh of the forearms and the thighs.
Of course the penis and the balls too. May they go first.
Batter the liver. Hammer the hammered heart.
Hurt, harm. Self-torture. Pain. Sit on a cactus.
Pliers to the teeth and salt to the eyes. Make
It all ugly. You are ugly. Smash the ankles to smithereens.
Somewhere an abandoned dog sleeps in a wet culvert
And knows nothing of this. He wants his tail to be caused to wag.
And a vulture perches in some high place, spreads
His wings and waits. He won’t be wait
.
Niall Griffiths
Picture Nick Victor
.