Lena Kim

a eulogy for the girl that dies first; or, alternatively, a critique on western media on who becomes the final girl and who becomes the first corpse, and overall why i learned to hate horror movies

this is for the girl who died first-

the forgotten, the scorned,

this if for the girl who blew out seventeen candles off of her cake just two days ago.

when they open you for the autopsy

they’ll ignore the holes already inside.

in their hands you come undone

you’re a sick sort of martyr now

heralded by undesirables.

i think i saw you in a dream last night

we ran together, down the barren concrete street

you never let go of my hand and i still felt the crescent moon tips

of your fingernails when i woke up.

tell me,

when did you refuse to die

as the damsel in distress?

as the girl too young to have all these eyes on her?

this pain should not be a shared concept.

they will barely wait til your body hits the dirt,

the dirt you spent so long trying to escape,

before you turn into a clumsy metaphor

recited in hollow homes to deaf ears

take off your heels, your fake diamonds

there’s no use for them where you’re going.

you’re the eighth deadly sin now, darling

how long will it be until i too become a crude metaphor

recited in hollow homes to deaf ears

we’re open targets either way- we never stood a chance

against the close lipped prayers,

the clutched rosaries,

the purity of the girl with the movie star name

and you can’t even be mad;

because you know there’s no way you could have ever made it

not even in the director’s cut.

become the sacrificial lamb or the suicidal intent

but i beg of you,

make your death indecipherable.

there will be no weak analogy to our end

we’ll become the things they fear the most

i won’t let you fade into a warning,

echoed and compounded over time

so raise a glass, everyone.

this is for the girl who became the thing she feared most-

broken and fractured and shattered-

this is for the girl who kept running,

even when there was no land left to run on.