Tohm Bakelas

murder, machete, machine gun

“my name is murder” he mumbled,
“i’m here to kill the haitians with
my machete. i’m going to cut 
their fucking heads off.”

“okay” i said, “good thing
i’m greek.”

he laughed and asked if
i had a machine gun

“no i don’t” i said

“that’s too bad” 

he shook my hand and 
walked down toward the
other patients’ bedrooms,
blasting them with his 
invisible machine gun 
before disappearing into
his room and screaming 

i went back to my desk
and began to eat my lunch 

Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. He is the author of 18 chapbooks and several collections of poetry, including “The Ants Crawl In Circles” (Whiskey City Press, 2022). He runs Between Shadows Press.