i lean in to light a cigarette off a
burner on the stove and catch my
reflection in the microwave door
on the way back up, all lipstick
smear and tangled hair. bright
girl, had so much potential at
one point a long time ago;
thirty-one years old like thirty-
one tally marks on the wall of
a fucking prison cell and
haunted beyond consolation
by so, so many ghosts. the
bullies and then the gropers
and the pillhead and the
predator, the ones who left
her for dead so many times
and kept coming back to
scavenge her bones only to
find her still alive, still trying
to claw her way out of hell
despite the portal being
right in her own rib cage –
they crowd behind her eyes
with unkind, grasping hands
in mirrors and puddles and
they live inside her blood
and under her fingernails
and behind her back teeth.
she scares me every time.
Kristin Garth & Pink Plastic House a tiny journal 