By Erica Phelps
Editor: Alloe Mak

Here I find my mind
stolen from sleep and kept in
murmuring voices
and rooms full of things
that sink and go
still.

In darkness and almost alone,
I am thinking of the absence of echoes.
Of things that go and come back
when here we stay for infinity—
things do not come back.

I see you but not where you are.
Behind me I hear whispers of a song
and know of a face,
like a translucent star
and eyes a gaping black.
Could you tell that I am a body already buried?

You are my monster
and together we roam darkness for
missing time.
I am abandoned by the soul,
a body already buried.
Where are you!
My monster, where are you.
I have nowhere to hide.

Think of caterpillars and cocoons—
from darkness butterflies fly forth.
Think of monsters and madmen
and girls that call out while hiding away:
right here out of sight right here.

I turn away and turn away.
I lose my voice and drop
my mind
in a trench full of pennies.

Could you tell that I am a body already buried?

Here my mind will stay,
and so will fade the girl who forgot,
while somewhere in the world,
a butterfly crawls out of a grave.