Content warning: reference to suicide
Fog on the window
When I first write this story, my pencil
snaps halfway through the first sentence
I pick up another but a hand crumples me
like linen to the stubble floor.
[paragraph] - incision
[paragraph] - exorcism
now the lines just lie there giving me the side-eye
all of that hurt become mundane
did you two ever talk about this?
I curl armadillo-stiff, my friend coaxing
it simmered, rot
beneath the bathroom floor,
‘the straw that snapped the camel’s back’ but
I wanted to tidy the strands,
lock them up with trembling hands
tell her to ignore the weight for
just another day:
it was good gothic horror, how we went quiet, watching as
her event horizon drew near
and I think of the child’s game I played
staring out the window:
if I don’t blink until I step off
this bus, she’ll be alive,
she’ll call me back;
Nick Newman (he/him) grew up in China and Scotland, and studies English Lit at the Uni of Leeds. His work is forthcoming in Mineral Lit Mag, Stone of Madness, and Lucky Pierre, and you can find him procrastinating on twitter @_NickNewman.