Krampus Navidad: A Holiday Poem by Jeffrey Hecker

Editor's note: This piece originally appeared in TheThe Poetry, and was republished last year in the old/previous Luna Luna

KRAMPUS NAVIDAD

On the thirteenth day of Christmas, your true love returns the partridge in a pear tree,
buys cashmere, hires the Cajun she’s philandering to murder you. No two turtle doves coo alike. No two entertain you so, nightly, before dawn enters.

No three French hens sleep as sensitive as you. Anyhoo, his orders are to corner you before four calling birds can dial 911, a feat they’re trained to accomplish in seconds. You see five golden rings emerge from a sink of dishwashing soap. Your marital status makes six geese a laying seem like six geese not getting laid.

You try personalizing all seven swans a swimming--still can’t tell why they tread in unison.  You’d file Chapter 7 if eight maids a milking didn’t churn enough product to fill every cereal bowl in town.

All your nine pipers piping produce is hemoglobin and ash. The cost of replacing leotards for your ten ladies dancing staggers Art, your lawyer/krump dancer. He intends to defend your eleven lords a leaping as soon as they settle down.

A soundproof shed holds your twelve drummers drumming. 

It snows Wednesday. The Cajun plans to shiv you Friday while your six geese a laying honk in despair. Your true love orders him to retrieve the twelve drummers drumming that she may enlist their aid on private karaokes of herself doing Cher, five golden rings coiled like an asp in Wisteria around her waist.

She desires your eleven lords a leaping to make an appearance in a music video. By the way, your true love is four calling birds short a singing voice. Ice Caps can melt before you give up lords, or ten ladies dancing for that matter. Art’s stopping over later with ballyhoo, mahi-mahi. Nine pipers piping, nitrogen oxide aside, do toss a mean garden salad.

You would marinade two turtle doves for the main course, but it offends the two already living with you. Eight maids a milking whip up vanilla shakes. Your confidant Wes, living the life of a partridge in a pear tree on a fortieth floor, brings desert.

"Wes, please ignore these seven swans a swimming and welcome." Wes cares nothing for swans--says, "good lamb, do ten ladies dancing perform topless?" 56: the hypothetical maximum egg-clutch of seven swans a swimming, all female. (You checked the sexes.)

Art arrived an hour late. Your four calling birds gave him the wrong apartment number. Athena saved Perdix: a partridge in a pear tree, after Uncle Daedalus pushed him off a cliff. Art mock-dispositions eleven lords a leaping. 

Wes says, "you sure seem calm for somebody about to perish." Eight maids a milking add cherries to the shakes and serve. "Wes, this morning I witnessed five golden rings emerge from a sink of dishwashing soap. I felt like an apostle."

Your two turtle doves play a game of freeze tag on the balcony.

"I can manage my twelve drummers drumming all week without going pagan/postal, I think I can handle my death." Nine pipers piping light Wes a clove before you say drive safe. All night you dream of your six geese a laying brick inside your sepulcher-shaped bathtub.

The sole commiserate: three French hens.

It snows Thursday. Your mail is late, but so what. Tomorrow, your eight maids a milking will be jacking cow nipples for somebody else. You’ll be dead, and those three French hens who seemed so concerned in dream will be pecking your nose raw. Eleven lords a leaping might be victims de facto. The Cajun doesn’t warm to dancing men or six geese a laying. 

Tomorrow, he will celebrate your death with the refund from your partridge in a pear tree. Why does going for a little walk mean spending money in true love?

Nine pipers piping stink less than this situation. The postman arrives as if stamped. Your four calling birds dictate your bills. Impending doom makes you languid. Of twelve drummers drumming, twelve stayed. The bassists heard your true love pays, made like seven swans a swimming for her sound studio. Normally, holiday gifts are of no consequence, but two turtle doves and things of this ilk grow on you like roller coasters or manslaughter. Ten ladies dancing do not perform topless. Half of them are engaged.

Look to their fingers: five golden rings.

Now is the hour to say what needs to be said. The heart is more than nine pipers piping blood to organs you’ll never see unless you’re a surgeon or a maniac. A five golden ring around-the-collar is no justification to suckle a Cajun’s penis. Partridge in a pear tree sounds like an Uncle Tupelo song, but it isn’t.

What is marriage? Are ten ladies dancing nothing more than twenty legs a moving to basic rhythm? What does six geese a laying prove? They aren’t proving reproductivity. You can’t imagine a heaven: two turtle doves feeding you stir-fried rice from beak to mouth. A blue trampoline. Eleven lords a leaping into grape vats.

Art hanging from a leaf, cross-examining them. Seven swans a swimming setting a record for the 500-meter freestyle. Paint-ball wars between three French hens and three Spanish chickens. Max Roach denouncing the twelve drummers drumming in front of Saint Paul.

What is marriage? A polygamist requires eight maids a milking, a multiple-furrow plow. You require a mate who doesn’t flap away like four calling birds when she finds you meditating naked.

There comes a point when your two turtle doves wish they were test canaries. Likewise, there comes a larger point in every man’s life when the best idea is to give up, but so long as three French hens or six geese a laying urinate throughout your apartment, that point has yet to evolve.

Eight maids a milking sing a glorious song concerning varying degrees of love and fatigue. Ten ladies dancing, or five rather, agree to shimmy bottomless in hopes the twelve drummers drumming might stop pan-beating long enough to take notice. There is one partridge in a pear tree advertised on eBay.

At breakfast, you considered bidding, until the three French hens reminded you it’s Friday and time to expire, like an image from Hamlet. Five golden rings appear in a glass of pulpless OJ. There are varying degrees of seven swans a swimming and love and fatigue, but of murder? There are no healthy murders or nine pipers piping, you decide.

A samurai or the U.S. State Department may disagree. Eleven lords a leaping lose five pounds each day. Wes visits around brunch. Five of twelve drummers drumming offer him gin, but he abhors juniper berries during the fiscal year.

"Eleven lords a leaping desperately need refills," Wes jokes. Wes is a true, selfless friend. Five of ten ladies’ dancing labias don’t faze him. He’s here on your behalf.

"Krampus Navidad," nine pipers piping choke. Wes implores you to move, or buy a shotgun. He gestures to eight maids a milking and calls you a humanitarian." Just look at all the weirdos and seven swans a swimming you’ve taken in," he says, "I don’t care if they are gifts."

He motions to six geese a laying when you see his grief. "If I move," you say, "I’m drying cement." "I saw five golden rings in my Simply Orange this morning." Wes asks you why so symbolic? Your four calling birds order a pizza. "I don’t know, Wes, I can’t stop reading Shakespeare. My three French hens are freaking me out. I think they may personify my momento mori.

My two turtle doves wish they were lovers in a poison cave. Hey Wes, you should buy a partridge in a pear tree on eBay." He tears up, but leaves krumping. (Art taught him.) Seven swans a swimming surface for air. Pizza comes but the driver smells oddly like a partridge in a pear tree. 

His moustache is slimy. Where’s Ian Fleming? The man ogles all eight maids a milking. You slip his tip back into your pants. His name tag reads Ozgar. No two turtle doves coo alike. Ozgar sounds totally made up, but Ozgar is very real.

The nine pipers piping adjourn to the balcony. Your only witnesses left in the room are the three French hens. 

He invades living space like a brass family member. The topless five of ten ladies dancing always distracts you at inopportune moments. Ozgar reveals a blade. Four calling birds try 911, but the two doves changed the speed dial to poison control. Eleven lords a leaping perform a series of jujutsu kicks, but it’s all too homosexual.

Five golden rings abstract the air like refulgent Lady Macbeths. Twelve of twelve drummers drumming watch Scooby-Doo, high-five whenever Daphne flashes on screen. Six geese a laying seem more like six spaces a wasting. Now is the hour to say that three French hens are too prima donna. Now is the hour to say what needs to be said. Six geese a laying are animal equivalents to doilies.

Does infidelity start with a vow?

Nine pipers piping think it starts with a vowel. During a commercial, five of twelve drummers drumming say they think it starts with a kiss, which is cute but quite moronic. Two turtle doves await poison control. They still make-believe they’re in a cave.

Your five golden rings vanish like a frightened stagecoach. Why hasn’t he killed you? Eight maids a milking blush. They know how cyclical churning spellbinds men, except eleven lords a leaping. 

Ozgar dodges the wet spots in the rug, and rages, "she blew my partridge in a pear tree money on a cashmere bunnyhug! I should be dicing in Reno!" Your four calling birds hang up the phone. You open the pizza box and eat a jalapeno. Seven swans a swimming submerge in unison. "True loves," you tell him, "love bunnyhugs."

Ten ladies dancing swing to their partner and bellow ‘yeehaw’ in agreement. Five of their five golden rings sparkle. It’s Friday. He sheaths the blade. He staggers over to your ten ladies dancing, smooches each one behind the earlobes. You hand him his tip. Your two turtle doves pretend to be swashbuckling. Doves are peculiar that way.

Seven swans a swimming squawk for cleaner wading water. Art’s back? Had he heard twelve drummers drumming watching cartoons and entered? He’s wearing a Life’s a Beach shirt. Four calling birds appreciate Art’s serenity. He yearns to represent a film noir studio of nine pipers piping. 

He doesn’t trust you if you’ve considered suing motion pictures. Cartridge in a Pear Tree, his first independent project, drew a massive audience of krumpers. Six geese a laying, you think, could have sat through it. It was that constructive. Eleven lords a leaping don’t possess patience for cinema. "Life is artful enough," they tell eight maids a milking who would normally smile like any nice face multiplied by eight, only four calling birds now flutter around you as if to remind you it’s still Friday.

Your eight maids a milking are too nervous to smile. Ozgar sizes up Art and one of the twelve drummers drumming then stabs the solo musician during Daphne’s last monologue. No three French hens sleep as terrible as you. Art yells 'cut,' and exits stage left. Seven swans a swimming dry off and follow him out. He pops back in to collect his clients, eleven lords a leaping. 

"Ozgar, why did you kill that drummer?" you ask. Ozgar’s eyes stare off: two turtle doves. Now is the hour to say what needs to be said. The room is not clean. Six geese a laying pretend to sweep. Ozgar should leave. You are tired of him. The ten ladies dancing worked with Jimmy Durante. You are tired of everything. A partridge in a pear tree is a terrible Christmas present.

It doesn’t take you long to realize the five golden rings were the same bands you gave your true love over a ten year span. Nine pipers piping call that epiphany. You call that crappy, and start to regard those eleven lords a leaping as true-love payback for your refusal to hang her plastic mistletoe. Nine pipers piping, nine wooden chimneys.

What is marriage?  "Good riddance seven swans a swimming."

Ozgar exits eyeing your nonpareils and other decorative sugar balls. Five golden rings emerge from a pyrite paperweight. Where’s Ian Lancaster Fleming?

Three French hens. Three French hens. Three French hens. Ozgar smelled like the partridge in a pear tree. 

He should collect trash of trash collectors. The hour to say twelve drummers drumming is noise pollution passed. No one refreshed the wading water. Your ten ladies dancing will run out of steps or maybe they’ll keep dancing who cares. Your eight maids a milking return to Amish life. A single photograph of their smiles is worth the fine.

Six geese a laying look like shower nozzles. The hour has passed to say nothing beats your four calling birds, especially during the MLB playoffs. Who blow-dried half your snowman?

No two turtle doves coo alike. A partridge in a pear tree smells like nothing else. Two turtle doves or four calling birds make super stocking-stuffers. You miss your true love most during the fiscal year.

Five golden rings and six geese a laying make abhorrent Christmas gifts. Seven swans a swimming and eight maids a milking represent assembly line mentality. Nine pipers piping and ten ladies dancing barely know each other’s import. You live 3500 extra Fridays. Eleven lords a leaping prepare to eulogize a lone casualty of twelve drummers drumming drumming drumming.  

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Jeffrey Hecker was born in 1977 in Norfolk, Virginia. He’s the author of Rumble Seat (San Francisco Bay Press, 2011) & the chapbooksHornbook (Horse Less Press, 2012), Instructions for the Orgy (Sunnyoutside Press, 2013), & Before He Let Them Guide Sleigh (ShirtPocket Press, 2013). Recent work has appeared inMascara Literary Review, Atticus Review, La Fovea, Zocalo Public Square, The Burning Bush 2, LEVELER, Spittoon, & similar:peaks. He holds a degree from Old Dominion University. He resides with his wife Robin.

How Megan Duffy Played A Victim In A Film, But Is No Longer A Victim In Real Life

BY MEGAN DUFFY

Last New Year’s Eve, I went on a 2nd date with a guy I’d met through a close friend. He’d asked that mutual friend for permission to romantically pursue me, and after I asked "are you sure he’s not a psycho?" my friend assured me he was a "great guy."

Our first date was to Disneyland and seemed to go well. We kissed but I didn’t spend the night. On NYE I was loaded into a big limo with his closest friends and shuffled from party to party. He was my kiss at midnight but didn’t really talk to me much until the party was dying down and the sun was coming up.

Him, his best friend, and his best friend’s girlfriend and I, as well as the evening’s leftovers, landed back at his house around 9 in the morning. He made bacon for me/us and insisted I have a cocktail while he then did a bunch more cocaine. Having been up all night, and now drunk, I was tired and said I needed a nap. As I started to pass out he carried me off to his bedroom. I told him I wanted to just sleep but he was already aggressively pulling my clothes off and grabbing at me. My protests were admittedly weak, and since it was clear there was no stopping him, I tried insisting he put on a condom, to which he laughed and said something like "that’s cute" and then just shoved it in. It hurt a lot. He didn’t seem to notice the water coming out of my eyes.

I convinced myself that even though this wasn’t how I wanted our first time to be, I probably would’ve ended up having sex with him eventually anyway. And I’d been nude in a hot tub at some point in the evening so surely to him it seemed like I was asking for it. Some people don’t understand the difference between nudity and promiscuity. He was supposed to be a great guy--after all, my friend who introduced us said so. He’d even asked permission to ask me out. That meant he liked me, right? Maybe he was really excited, and this was probably just a misunderstanding. Also he was on drugs so I was he didn’t realize he was hurting me. I didn’t want to cause a scene, especially not with his friends in the next room. I wanted to be cool. I wanted to be tough. I was stronger than this.

So I took it like  an adult.

But it went on for hours. I would pass out and wake up to him shoving it in again. Each time hurt worse but I kept my composure. I attempted a few times to get up and leave, using the excuse that I needed to go home to feed my cat, but he’d pull me back down saying he wasn’t done with me yet. I considered that maybe I was inside of a bad dream. After about four hours when he wasn’t coked up anymore it finally stopped. I felt humiliated having to face his best friend who knocked on the door to suggest the group of us spend the afternoon ordering pizza and watching movies. I wondered if he had any idea of what I’d been experiencing, or if this was something normal in their world.

He let me leave to go home to feed my cat as long as I promised to come back.

When I got home I cried in the shower while cleaning my wounds. I shouldn’t have gone back, but I did. I desperately wanted to be comforted, like I was a girl he’d actually liked and hadn’t meant to hurt. We spent the afternoon and evening cuddling on the couch with his friends and his friend’s dog and he was nice to me. I felt soothed.

I continued dating him for half a year, partly because I was in denial that I’d gotten into a bad situation and wanted to feel like I had some kind of control over what’d happened and partly because the injuries he caused me led to so many infections (over $300 worth of medical bills AFTER insurance) that I couldn’t sleep with anyone else even if I wanted to. Also, every time he would be rough with me he’d justify it as passion and/or excitement, saying things like, "I’d been waiting for hours to do that." This was always followed by some gesture of kindness. Like one night when, while under the influence of a mixture of adderall, cocaine, and MDMA, he bit my arm so hard I started to cry. The next day he took me to meet his mom for the first time. It calmed the terror I felt and replaced it with a feeling of being cared about. I put on a sweater with long sleeves.

I found myself craving those kind moments like a drug. I needed them to feel good about myself, and about what had happened/was happening. I started thinking maybe something was wrong with me--that I was too sensitive, or I just bruised easily, or was a prude for not enjoying rough sex. I also thought that it wasn’t his fault my body was so delicate that I kept getting so sick, and that previous relationships had made me feel afraid to be vulnerable. Given my life experiences and age I didn’t believe there was any way I’d find myself in a relationship with a bad guy. That’s something that’s supposed to happen when you’re 23 and don’t know any better, right? Not to a smart successful feminist in her 30s.

And to be honest, it wasn’t all bad. We got along pretty well, and there was an electricity between us that sometimes felt magical. Sometimes the sex was fun and I would initiate it, (though I was never able to finish). We were spending every weekend together, often with his friends who were warm and kind to me and I liked them a lot. Some would reiterate what a great guy he was while expressing their hopes that I wouldn’t break his heart like the previous women in his life had. We would make dinner together, and had a TV show we were watching. The more I opened up to him the better he treated me. There were a lot of things I liked about him--like that he was smart and funny and talented and seemed to work hard and would bend over backwards to be there for his friends. We never had any arguments. I stopped questioning whether or not he was a good person and began to trust him.

Then one Saturday afternoon, he showed up at my house and told me that he had to end things because he didn’t have feelings for me. He told me he’d known when he met me that he was never going to love me, that he had been telling friends that since the beginning, and that this game he’d been playing with me had gone too far. He cried three times before I did, swinging back and forth between sobbing like a scared child-victim, and a vicious evil stranger. I kept telling him it didn’t make sense, asking him to tell me what was really going on. Why would he take a girl he didn’t like to meet his family, or ask her out in the first place, especially with the fanfare of asking for permission? Instead of answering he’d spin the conversation in another direction, feigning sadness, or pulling out more waterworks. In one derailment he just started to cry about how his roommate wouldn’t let him adopt a cat. This went on for an hour. I felt so confused and scared and knew there was a giant missing piece he was leaving out. It was the most emotionally violent experience of my life. The bruise, still on my arm from his bite a month before, stayed for 2 more weeks after he was gone. I had to look at it in the mirror everyday. Regardless of whether he was gaslighting me or being "honest," I finally had to admit to myself that I had been in a relationship with an abuser. 

It turned out what actually happened is he’d hooked up with another girl the night before, and rather than admit to being a bad guy (and arguably a cheater), decided to attack me and negate our entire relationship. Once I found out the truth I started doing research on him (as well as ex-girlfriends of his that I knew about), It turned out his ex-girlfriend before me, a girl whom he and all his friends referred to as a "crazy bitch" (and who I’d been assured was out of the picture), hadn’t really been an ex yet when we started dating. I discovered he had a history of gaslighting, cheating, and being physically violent with women he had dated. He’d label them as "crazy" when they reacted to his mistreatment, and then manipulate them into believing it was somehow their fault. He was definitely not the good guy his friends all believed him to be.

I wasn’t going to be a victim anymore. I got the chance to stand up to him two months later, calling him out on his abuse of not just me but other women as well. I made sure it happened in a public place with people around. The scars were still going to take some time to heal, but I finally felt empowered. 

So when I was offered the role of Mandy in the upcoming film "Holidays," a girl who is tortured and abused by her New Year’s Eve date, I immediately said yes. While Mandy doesn’t make it out alive, in real life I continue to heal and am living a life full of amazing people, good work, and fulfilling adventures. I’m thankful for everyone who’s been a part of it. And I donated a portion of my paycheck from the project to Planned Parenthood. They do a lot of good work saving vaginas from harm. 

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Nurturing a body of work that encompasses film and television, Megan Duffy has not only carved her own path in Hollywood but her career continues to evolve with exciting and challenging projects.

Megan garnered attention for her standout role as "Lucie" starring alongside Elijah Wood in the remake of 1980’s horror thriller "Maniac," which debuted at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Her next film "Holidays," directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer and produced by Kevin Smith will be released in 2016. 

A former professional dancer as well as music video producer, segueing effortlessly between the big and small screen, Megan has had guest starring roles in some of primetimes most popular shows including "Criminal Minds," "How I Met Your Mother, “Mad Men" and "Gilmore Girls," and has appeared in over 50 national commercials. She was the recipient of the "Best Guest Actress in a Comedy" award at the 2015 Indie Series Awards for her role as "Piper" in "Dating Pains," and will next appear on the show "Pretty Vacant" from Maker Studios. 

A native of Enfield, Connecticut, Megan currently resides in Los Angeles.