Literature
The Day She Disappears
It is the day she discovers
she has ears
but no mouth.
She realizes that she said nothing
but in her imagination, the words between
her ears never escaped.
It is the day she discovers
she cried every tear allotted to her
for this lifetime.
She thinks of her brother trapped,
a life-long night terror, imagines fish
nibbling ashen remains, her father
in the lakebed, her father as a spiral,
her family as an old treehouse on fire,
blasted by lightning.
She feels a hysteria build in her brain,
the swarm of wasps rage.
The eroded ridges of her cheeks never fill.
Her eyes don't even shine,
two desert oases forgotten by the rain.
The w