No doubt about it, a real moneymaker…. Of course it was going to burn.
When the Pornhub owner’s Montreal mansion
went up in flames,
speculation spread like fire itself:
Who was responsible? Who torched the house?
Enraged parents whose daughters’d been exploited?
Girls had killed themselves when the videos went viral.
QANON anti-pornography crusaders?
Evangelicals horrified by the sinful raw sex?
A mob hit of some kind,
retribution for muscling in on the action?
Or just a random arsonist out for kicks?
“Burn them to the ground!”
The tweets flew fast as bullets,
tommygunning the internet with invective,
inciting and inviting violence.
“They must all roast in Hell!
Sex workers are like scum on your shoes!”
Was this a hate crime, then?
Religious zealots going after the “harlots”?
“The site’s infested with rape videos,
like termites chewing through wood.
Spy cam videos of naked girls!
Even snuff porn, a woman asphyxiated
with a plastic bag. Disgusting!”
No doubt about it, a real moneymaker,
up there with Amazon and Netflix,
Facebook and Google.
Of course it was going to burn.
Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore. Two of his full-length collections have been published in 2020, Catastroika, from Apprentice House, and Ugler Lee from Kelsay Books. A poetry chapbook, Mortal Coil, is forthcoming from Clare Songbirds Publishing.
Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of NoirCon 