IF U SAY IT, MAKE IT TRUE – Nicholas Rall

March 27, 2024

800-001-0008

 

I am going to call the woman 

who knows how 

to get the thrips out. 

When I was 9

 I saw an advertisement..

It was of a beautiful, glowing woman..

She held some sort of metal device that was zapping a cartoon oval shaped bug

Above her head read the following

DO YOU HAVE  it  inside of you?

You will not need to think about that question if the answer is yes.

You will know..if you want any hope at a life worth living call this #

800-001-0008. The sooner you call, the less damage the thrips can do. 

CALL NOW 

I memorized the number. 

Everything was okay then

No thrips yet 

But I saw 

them in

crawl 

Into the people 

Who lived in 

The house 

with us

I knew

One day 

I would 

catch one trying 

to sneak 

down my throat

In 5th grade.

They started to come

I was always able to  

just close my mouth 

chew them up

And  them out onto the ground 

But as my skin grew looser,

The cracks in my 

body became 

Weaker 

They got smarter

They knew to sneak around

I’d catch them swimming around

Under my fingernails, often.

Evolution made them so small 

That they could sneak in through 

Any crack, any opening 

NOT just my mouth anymore…

Everyday I try to call the number

But they’d crawl out of my nails 

Into the phone.

No one could 

Hear me. 

Yesterday

I was on the bus again

I saw the advertisement, just the corner of it,

Faded and breathing its last gasp..

Soon to be fully covered over by unlimited data.

I mourned it, looked at my nails…

pulsing

black 

The woman sitting across from me.

held the same metal tool 

that was now 

faded from the poster.

It was her…

Perfect skin.

Aged but not decayed.

My stop rang…

I  found my self in a snack shop 

that was once 

a massive concrete bank.

In the very back, 

by the single use white t shirts 

and 56 oz fourloko’s

I was pushed to the ground 

HARD

A bulldozer and kitchen mixer had a baby 

And its cry was getting closer to my chest.

The woman looked so calm on top of me 

As her instrument roared into me 

When I woke up in the 

back of the snack shoppe

She was gone…

I looked at my hands 

Beneath the nails, 

pink flesh that 

I accepted I’d never 

see again

 

 

 

AROMASTER kf400 (10 cup) 

Under the window, a mile, 
A few thousand people are walking in the dark 
A dozen of them are running 
35 hundred are walking 
And a few are not moving by choice 
There was one source of light, down on the street, 
Richard Gere…his flesh glowing like a nightlight 
Dim, but comforting, to everyone down there 

 

“How big is the coffee pot on your counter?” my neighbor called over from her window Separate structure but only 25 feet away 
Identical in every way except placement on land, our apartments were mirrors of each other “Not too big, really not too big…fits with a good amount of room” 
Richard’s glow started to trick my eyes into thinking it was daylight down there; about 40 people basked in his glow as he paced around the base of my neighbors building “How does yours fit?” I called over to my neighbor 
“Don’t have one” she shrugged, 
Richard’s neck snapped up 
A flash, his glow became a ray… 
The darkness became white 
Richard’s body was held on the brick of my neighbor’s building because he was born there, One of his arms uniting his body with the wall 
The other kept something so safe within his glow 
(now faded) 
The white began to shrink from my eyes fully as Richard climbed into her window Roofing tar began to leak out of my coffee pot 

 

Out of the window, I could smell a fresh brew… 
The same pot, 
On my neighbor’s kitchen counter 

 

shot, scored and edited by Salem Anhedonia