When I finally turn on the light to see why she’s so quiet, I realize I’ve been braiding the kelp that’s been growing from her empty eye sockets for three weeks since we pulled her from the lake, but the worst part is feeling her cold fingers gently guiding my technique.
He told her it’s about an elderly woman raising children over the years, but when she told him she's never had any children, the editor said that’s a great hook for the true crime influencers who are filming tomorrow at the seven playgrounds where she wrote the children could never be found.
The knife now rests beside him, covered from head to toe where he's carved them into bone; can anyone tell him why it’s his sister’s name and number, why it’s ringing in the walls when he dials, and why something else answers asking why you keep ignoring it when unknown numbers call?
I remember yesterday, like always, waking, driving, eating, meeting, coming and going—exactly, I remember waking, driving, tasting people I remember, waking, I remember eating, I.
"The nest is almost ready," said the parasite that replaced my old tongue as it tells my body to collect teeth from the twenty-three people who came looking for me after I stopped coming to work, gently placing each souvineer around a cocoon at the nape of my throat, which just whispered ‘23’ in a voice that used to be mine.
Closed Eyes
He blinked and the room changed. Everything was slightly wrong—furniture shifted, colors muted. Each blink was a different version of home.
Audience
The crowd in her peripheral vision never looked away. When she turned to face them, they'd look at something else. They never blinked.