Writing | Not Human by Danielle Willis

in my dream I found
a Polaroid of a woman
lying on her back
split open from her
cunt to her breastbone
her insides had been
neatly chopped and
sorted beside her,
white and rubbery as
a pile of scallops
the sheets were
translucent with oil
her legs were
shimmering with scales
and on the back of the
Polaroid some had written
"She is not human."
I searched for other
Polaroids and there were
hundreds of them;
hidden under pillows
tucked into drawers
stacked behind drapes,
men and women in various
states of dismemberment,
all with the legend
"Not Human" written
on the back
there were larger
photographs nailed
to the walls, all of them
dark and blurry and
slashed to ribbons except
for a framed blow-up of a
winged man being crucified
there was a drift
of white down at the
base of the cross and
as I looked at the picture
the drift grew higher and higher
until all I could see
was part of the man's
head resting like
a bruised fruit on
top of a mountain
of feathers