7.25.2023 - True Crime

7.25.2023
True Crime

“Dressed to Kill” is ambiguous
To some, it’s tuxes and nice earrings,
Others imagine ski masks and jackboots.
Going around killing folk,
Never ends well,
Especially for those doing the dying.
The drama dwelling in the family breast,
Abuse or neglect or honest misunderstanding.
The ties bound by a surname,
Can uplift as well as strangle.
Floor plans of houses,
Burgled or bungled,
What do we learn here?
What can we make of these details?
The exploded graphic of a tragedy,
Picked bones from vulture news anchors,
Faded school photo in missing profile,
Cuffed hands held before guilty face,
As the cameras flash and film rolls.
That True Crime perspective,
Singing thousands of girls to sleep.
Podcasts guiding drivers down nighttime highways,
Youtube Bailey Sarian or MrBallen spinning the yarn,
Stephanie Harlowe, Casual Criminalist, more names and talking heads.
Why are we so fixated?
What do we hope to see in these corpses?
Are we comforted or curious?
Perhaps we seek a dark connection.
Divorced from death and its abstractions,
The modern gulf between each other,
Yawning wide with its cargo of smartphones,
Social media isolation.
Is this how we find connection?
Scraping the ashes of grief,
Seeking our fellows,
Reaching for a scrap of humanity,
Among the lost, broken, and depraved.