Richie Narvaez

I DIED A THOUSAND TIMES: DEATH #556

For E.A. Aymar

When I woke up this a.m., I didn’t think I was going to have to kill anybody, but some days you stretch a bottle of gin and half a pack of Morley’s, other days you’re at the bank to empty your account & you find yourself stopping a heist-hostage situation before lunch, three gutter punks wearing Hendrick’s Plus-Size Back Seam Thigh-High Stockings™ for masks hollering for the aging patrons and the one turtle-slow teller to get down, shut the hell up. You find yourself Captain Kirk-rolling on the cold marble to come up blasting the leader to kingdom come, pivoting to echo bullets in his partners’ faces. You find yourself in the sudden silence standing akimbo, nodding to no one, then walking away, chest out, unthanked, unloved, unknown because that’s the way you like it, the way I need it. However, there’s one cheerful fellow at the door, his hand up. So I raise my hand to slap it, I deserve it, why not. But he’s actually just waving hi to someone behind me, so I, I pretend I need to tug on my ear just then and keep on walking. The smell of gunfire fresh in the afternoon air.


Richie reads "Death #556":



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Richie confesses: I recently re-saw the Jack Palance movie I Died a Thousand Times, and it made me wonder about what each particular death could be. This poem's death was inspired by a social media post I read by the author E.A. Aymar. Please forgive me, E.A.


RICHIE NARVAEZ is the author of the anthology Roachkiller and Other Stories and the urban thriller Hipster Death Rattle. His next book, the YA historical mystery Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco, is due out in May.