Love // Kill

by Dion O’Reilly

The unloved daughter of a killer
goes outside
looking to be hurt,

which is cruel to say. No one —
not even a killer’s daughter —
loves to suffer. Which is why

she says she can’t love
her mother anymore. How could she
love a killer?

But one day, she sleeps with a killer.
For the rest of her life,
she says I loved that man.

But her mother’s the killer
she never stopped loving.

It’s simple. Simple as a ghost.