We would be haunted, but time tells me to forget that sickly feeling, because there are more

arrangements to be made in the new home, we sold the house papa died in, maybe for the best,

could we thrive, where emptiness was far more sinister than emptying the house of its furniture.

O

We moved into a smaller place, I can hear my grandma wake up now, making morning coffee,

taking her turn to feed the cats, I can hear her soft shuffling in the 9 am light. I can’t picture what

life would be like without her, I don’t want to, but someone always reminds me.

O

My grandma shakes me awake, she says I have been talking in my sleep, she can’t decipher what

I have said, but it concerns her, I dream of snakes, knives, rapid water, indescribable monsters

pursuing, I will never completely be able to define what lurks, but when I’m awake, safety feels

like a steady walk upon a thin-glass greenhouse.

O

Simply, overwhelmed by chaos, I run over roadkill and pop its swelled body, my tires are marked

with guts and hair, I can’t tell you how long I had been driving, but I must pull over and catch

my breath. The stench lilts through my car, I have the AC on and now I’m sick to my stomach, I

feel like that some days, creature crossing, creature crashed into, creature left to decay.

O

When I cycle back around to my ‘no longer habits but emotional residuals’, I aim to cut between

what was, and what is now, I no longer will leave things to rot, I will tenderly bury and move on.