The Warm-Up Girls by M. Brett Gaffney

We are the ones who died first.
The girls you saw coming from a mile away,
a slow run, a crop top. We sluts,
foul-mouthed and fucking.
We slashed-to-ribbons, starting lineup. 

Bloody beginnings with perfect hair,
breasts blessed by our mothers.
We’re made of reminders, bodies
bursting with cautionary tales
so old we don’t remember
which frightened god wrote them first.

We will get you ready for the real kills.
The sidekick carrying our blood
on his clothes for awhile until
he hits the darkness harder
than any of you expected. 

Save your hope for these few.
We don’t want your finales,
your aftermath flush with the clean
comfort of open ambulance doors.
We don’t need to see the credits roll.
You’ll forget our names by then anyway.

Casey Becker.
Marcie Stanler.
Lynda Van Der Klok.
Phyllis Stone.
Tina Gray.
Helen Shivers.
Maureen Evans.
Pam.
Jules.
Claire.
Sylvia. 

We’re on a first name basis already,
too close for comfort. Too close
to know the boys we love
will kill us in the end.

And oh, you’ll try to warn us,
but we already know
what’s in the darkness.
It’s why we’ve come.
Or else you don’t have your final girl.
Or else all of us are gone.

This poem was featured in Issue 07 of Canthius.

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M. Brett Gaffney holds an MFA in Poetry from Southern Illinois University. Her chapbook Feeding the Dead (Porkbelly Press) was nominated for a 2019 Elgin Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. She works as co-editor of Gingerbread House Literary Magazine and writes about scary stuff on her blog at No Outlet Horror Reviews.