Sara Ryan is the author of the chapbooks Never Leave the Foot of an Animal Unskinned (Porkbelly Press) and Excellent Evidence of Human Activity (The Cupboard Pamphlet). She was the winner of the 2018 Grist Pro Forma Contest, and her work has been published in or is forthcoming from Pleiades, DIAGRAM, Booth, Prairie Schooner, Thrush and others. She is currently pursuing her PhD at Texas Tech University.
as you slept, I lay awake —
staring at the water-stained
ceiling tiles. I named the rain
fox-like; it crept into your home
and stayed there, watching from
above. watching as I clawed
at my arms. my insides buzzing
with flies. I could hear the ocean
sighing from your window. yells
and sports cars and the oily
screeches of tires 20 floors
below. every year, you find
an excuse to remind me. you
nudge and I respond — a moth.
I delete and laugh and my mouth
fills with wings. every year, I learn
something new about my body.
every year, I grow another vertebra
and it clicks when I walk. every year
I cut the bones out and bleach
them clean. you are always
an excision. sometimes, I wonder
what would have been, had we never
met. had you seen me and forgotten
my face. had we fallen in love with other
people and you never touched me
and we lived in other states
and we dreamt sweet dreams
and we lived.