little altars
the world i was born into no longer exists.
i think i realized that too soon before i knew how to cope with it.
and i’ve been confusing dreams and memories a lot nowadays.
the sound of a cieling fan on a humid florida summer days. the way my name sounds coming from a strangers mouth, before i learned to spell it.
sun burns and the smell of chlorine. crayon wax melting between my fingers.
i’ve tried to trap it all— in photos, in notebooks, but it fades fast i forget names, places, faces
i dont remember when nostalgia just became an ongoing experience of grief. a chronic pain. i feel like ive been mourning things i can’t even name and a girl i don’t even know.
i’ll keep trying to remember though building little altars to places i don’t remember and people i’m afraid i never really knew.
the fox house
sometimes im convinced she wasn’t real. she was though, there are pictures to prove it. lots of them. her old dresses and hair bows, and little knickknacks fill bins and closets in dark corners of that house. that house by the lake. the fox house.
maybe she’s still there.
maybe that’s the only place she exists in.
beige and eggshell and white trimmed walls, confining carpet, and warm yellow light.
winding staircases splattered with blood. only once though, but it’s stained the cracks where the panels split shades of brown. she must still live there.
sprawling out on her green duvet, smothering a dingy stuffed lamb she never named.
the satin ribbon around it’s neck is frayed like split ends because she picks at it. she must still live there.
hiding in the back of her closet.
curled up under a collapsed couch cushion fort. she was real.
i think about her all the time now that she’s gone.
