THREE FINGERS

He was grey
His skin was ashen

His eyes were dark
No spark nor passion

His teeth were rotten
Green and brown

His hair was burned
And ripped out

Circles under his bloodshot eyes
Crooked nose with scars on the side

Just skin that's grey
And protruding ribcage

He was covered in cuts
Thought he never noticed

Babbling brook, was he
Talking, talking with no sensibility

Only three fingers adorned his hand

He was left alone in spoiled soil and land

After the war he was insane
Talking to himself over and over again

Three little puppets on his hand
One for his daughter, wife, and man

He was the man, though he'd forgotten

His name wasn't remembered
A memory, now rotten

“Daughter! You're home!” He'd scream in joy

He toyed with his puppet
Abrubtly annoyed

“Why won't you answer?” He asked sweetly

“Why won't you talk? Speak to me!”

He bit at the finger
Holding the doll

Old three fingers
Tore it raw

He swallowed his flesh
And the puppet

Poor little Kate
“Oh my sweet muffet!”

He now only had two fingers left
One for himself, and a mother who left

A knock at the door
Sent him spiraling

But it was only a hole
Which he started smiling

Inside lie
The corpse of Marjean

The mother who left
Her husband and baby

He giggled at her dead rotting body
Inviting her in for a reunion party

He dressed her in bags
Hanging her on display

Her bones and muscles
Decaying away

Next to her body
Sat Kate's corpse too

Swinging side to side
Like wind chimes askew

He dressed them up
In their finest wear

Then dined on their flesh
Out of hate, not despair

But he blamed it on the last finger which hung quite limply there

“You,” he gurgled
Through a mouthful of blood

It wasn't the red you'd expect
But a black fountain, like mud

“You destroyed them all,” he shook with a fist.

“Now I'll kill you! You shan't exist!”

With a roar and a cry
He terrorized himself

Tore off his skin
And wore it as a pelt

He bled so black
He left trails of ebony

But little did he know
He was his own enemy

—
My little poem based on a short film called Salad Fingers
—