Our Home Should Have Colours And Flowers. Daisy Sims Hilditch / Christine Atkins / Stephen Darbishire

Dirt road Polna droga

I am holding my bloody heart out to you, my hands stained with red from holding it for so long.

and while you are not the person who ripped it out of my chest,

you are the person I am trusting to take care of it.

maybe you can put it back in for me.

Alpine lotus leaf flower

I used to think you were a smart man

now I’m not so sure

in fact

I think you told us several times

when I was younger

that you were anything but

you scared me too much to test that

I hope the people who live in our old house

look at the dent in the freezer

that you nearly broke your foot making

because you wished you could have done

it to me instead

and wonder how it got there

and soon enough they will discover

the lines I scratched into the wood

into the walls

little traces of anger

it fills every support beam,

every wall,

every floorboard like rot

spreading

consuming

devouring

I think I shall never forget the first time

seeing my mother’s new name

on a package with mine

I think she is getting better.

so am I.

How to Save Your Own Life, Erica Jong

something is rotting.

the smell pervades the house, wafting through the halls, seeping under the doorframes.

it’s subtle at first. easy to ignore. i turn on a fan and soon enough I’ve gone noseblind.

it’s been three days. I found a little mouse dead on the floor. it’s small. too small.

the smell gets worse. the fan is on all the time now. I put perfume under my nose to block it out. eventually, I grow numb.

a week. there is no escaping it. I have looked everywhere. it has stained all my clothes. It is here, somewhere, the source of it.

it has been months. I cannot leave. I am weak. it affects me constantly.

something is rotting.

it is me. it has always been me.

have a cat.

it is slowly getting brighter outside.

the horror clawing at me as my eyes snap open,

terrified of images that are intangible

and cannot harm me any longer.

it is slowly getting brighter outside.

The sunset tonight.