Subscribe now

“Symphony No. 22 ‘La Complicité’”

It’s my twenty-second birthday.

I spend a lot of time wondering what a woman’s twenty-second birthday is supposed to be. I think I should feel different by now. Mature. Less embarrassed.

There’s supposed to be some severing from the harsh condition of girlhood.

There isn’t.

I plan a party in the woods. Invite my friends.

I make them hand-bound books for the occasion. Personalized. Poetry and prose. Collaged covers. Letters tucked inside. Why I love them, sloppy, in cursive.

My parents bought the property recently. Gravel roads, roadkill, vaguely marked trails. One busted RV, isolated in unmowed clearing.

Five people willing to drive an hour and a half in the woods for me at this age feels miraculous, I know. But the drive down is all dread. Pacing around in my body, wearing holes in the acrylic carpet.

We arrive and immediately fall into our usual roles:

Jake and Tom start packing a bowl.

Ben sets up the tents.

I show Sarah and Maggs the RV.

Sarah is my best friend. I can barely look at her. Maggs only makes it worse. She keeps pointing out how similar Tom and Jake are. She means it affectionately. I laugh even though it sours all the sweet in me.

I need a distraction, so I gather my friends. Give them their gifts. Feel weird doing it.

The books are received warmly, briefly. The weed comes back out. Then the Busch Lite. I hate beer, but chug it anyway. The faster I become half-here, the better.

I hate smoking in groups, but especially with Sarah because she always disappears into her phone. I guess I know why. The boys complain about Arc Raiders. Maggs smiles at me.

I become hyperaware of my posture. My outfit: itchy, striped hoodie, giant skull across the front. I don’t know why it feels humiliating. Sitting starts to feel physically incorrect. I hate how badly I want everyone to be having a good time.

Jake hands me the bong, lights the bowl. I inhale too hard on purpose.

Next to him, Sarah leans her head into one hand, pale skin painted screen-blue.

“Let’s go for a walk,” I say, in the mask best received by this particular group. Instantly animated. Dancing around. Pulling Sarah by the wrists.

“C’monnn!” I don’t know why this works on them, but it always does.

Smiling to themselves, thinking they’re humoring me, they follow. We find trail signs just beyond the campsite and wander into the trees. Before we reach the path, Jake presses a folded piece of bread into my lips. Peanut butter leaks from the sides.

“Shrooms,” he says. “Eat it.” I do.

For a while I hate it. Then everything slips into kaleidoscope magic. Creases in the bark of trees act like gills, respirating the wood. Moss rests on hollow rotten trees, electric green lace. Light filters through the canopy in iridescent layers. My body slows to match this new pace.

My body.

I look down. The hoodie. The skull. My hands. Impounding wave of shame.

I look across the creek at Sarah, seeking comfort, but see her car pulling up, rushed. Half on the curb at my house last month.

I see her at the front door. I let her in. We’re in my living room. She won’t sit down. She’s spilling, truth spewing like vomit. Things I already know. The shattered bathroom door. Flinching when her phone lights up. Things I never ask about.

I hear the plan we make. The way she cries and I cry. Burning when I hold her. The draft. Open door when she leaves. Disregarding everything. Going back to him. I will lose her if I handle this wrong.

We go on like normal. Me, complicit.

Under the trees, my own self sickness swells until it becomes physical. Until I’m wretching and gagging, bent like a crowbar.

Sarah’s standing over me, hand barely-there on my back.

All I can think of is how much I hate this. I wonder if it’s better than being alone.

When I recover, we drift back to camp. Blue dusk burns indigo black. We drink more. Smoke more. Barely talk.

Nobody sings happy birthday. I guess people stop doing that when you turn twenty-two.

I go to bed first.

My tent is closest to the road. Every hour security revs past on the gravel loud enough to shake me awake again. I lie there staring into grey tent roof wishing for wifi, for the ability to disappear downward into scrolling until my brain turns off.

After six more drive-bys, I’ve had enough. I drape my blanket like a cloak, fuzzy white in the dark to the RV. I climb inside. I don’t want to wake anyone.

I jump when I see Ben, still up, stretched out on the bed. Long legs dangling over the edge. I’m glad it’s him and not anyone else.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks.

“You either?” I climb in next to him. We face each other, resting on elbows.

Then he rolls onto his back and sighs.

This proximity makes me think I can tell him about Sarah and Jake.

“I’m worried,”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket. Opens instagram. Some Smith & Wesson review.

I don’t continue. Roll on my back, too.

It’s okay. I know there is nothing he could say.

We were all barely scraping by together. Not one of us has the kind of adults in our lives who could tell us what to do about something like this. About anything.

That’s why we’re friends.

This piece was inspired and influenced by Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathetique’ . If you have time for an hour of background noise, I urge a listen . <3

Subscribe now

Thank you so much for reading, and more importantly, being people I feel comfortable sharing different facets and styles of my writing with. It’s difficult to articulate what it means, but know I am beyond grateful.

Leave a comment

Perhaps a piece like this isn’t as easy to comment on, but if any part of this resonates, I’d love to know, to whatever degree you are comfortable.

Subscribe now

“Pearlfish”

Always sinking.

The drop begins in the center of her body, pulling the rest with it into the blue. Water, closing around from every side.

She futilely thrashes. Mouth open, crying out. The sea pours in. Salt scouring throat. Dark water presses behind eyes, into ears.

Then she is returned. Vast, empty abyss.

Again she swims toward a surface she cannot see. Her lungs cinch tight. Heart hammering against teeth.

Returned.

Shadows circle beneath her. Above her. At every angle, loose blots moving through the blue.

They close in. Sleek backs. White undersides. Eyes, devoid.

Drowning is indifferent. An animal has intent.

One turns and rises. Its mouth opens. Concentric, rotting rows of teeth.

She reaches toward them. The jaws close.

Slicing. Crunching. Splintering.

Refining.

Returned.

She lifts her hands before her face. Lace-like membranes of silver-blue web her fingers. Fine scales sheath her skin in milky cobalt, violet, and green. The inside of an oyster.

Above her, a glow burns through the glacial water, unwavering and absolute. She is no longer afraid.

She swims. This time, without resistance. The blue lightens. Surface broken.

Floating in a chamber of slick, violet-grey flesh, she sees no sky. Curved walls sweat around her. Everything glistens.

Suspended above is a craterless moon. Smooth and spherical. White-pink and green.

The shell opens. The seam parts. Hot white light pours through, bleaching the chamber to bone.

Iridescence, stripped from her body. Scales turn translucent. Veins appear briefly beneath her skin like silver, iced-over streams. Then even they dissolve.

Her body gleams. Marble held to the sun.

She grows in the light. Feet lengthening against the curve of the shell, legs unfolding, spine lifting vertebra by vertebra. She rises. Too large for the shell. Too large for her scales. Her own skin.

All dissolve into shine.

When the white clears, she shakes the too-small shell from her ankle and runs. Sprints.

Lush green unfurls in every direction, dew-bright.

Water, splashing. Wet blades stick to calves. Clover, crushed beneath her feet.

She feels everything. Each leaf. Each stem. The world touching her completely.

It does not hurt.

i am grateful that you would ever read this. thank you for spending any time here !

i would really love to hear what u think, what resonated with u, or what meaning you took from it. Knowing your insight is my favorite part of sharing work. It is what i look forward to most. <3

Leave a comment

if u feel compelled, plz subscribe !

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

“Autolysis”

The path is not its typical beaten crimson. Its bricks shift in static flecks, shades of gold and maroon. I want them to stay red. So they do.

I skip. Air carries my hair, my dress.

The sky is still, suspended above dusty flats peeling up into amber mountains.

Yellow light, not from any sun. Through me.

The pit is somewhere ahead, out of sight. I skip faster. I want to be there already. To lean over the lipped edge, stare into the grey spiral descent. I want inside.

Mid-hop, one leg lifted, and I’m touched. Taken. Warm liquid, sudden, total. It moves back to front, swallowing. My eyes close before it can finish.

I let it take.

My drowning is immediate, but not violent. I don’t fight or thrash. I am still, floating. Light, extinguished. In this water, I am alone with the distant sound of beating.

Then, erupted. Ejected upward without choosing. Turned. Drawn toward the only visible opening: the surface of a glowing pond.

I reach it, breach at its center. Turquoise water. The space resolves around me: a sweating cave chasm.

The noise is louder now. Too loud. I cup hands over ears but it barely muffles. The sound is structural, inside the walls, inside the space. My eyes follow, climbing along a ridge of rock until I see it.

An indigo heart, whale-sized, bulging through the cave wall, pumping. Pulsing.

Arteries web outward, rooting into the slick stone, threading it, burrowing like pink worms in dirt.

Captured by its deafening force, pearl saliva pools in the corners of my open mouth.

I am lifted.

Rising toward it, limp bodied, weightless in the dank blue air.

We become level, face to valve, close enough to feel the pulmonary pull and release, the glossy heat.

I embrace it. My limbs wrap tight, inelegant, insistent. Child on the playground who will not let go. Who will not go home.

We are two wet bodies, clinging, coalescing like watered blue paint.

The beating intensifies.

Sound turns visible, waves shooting out with each contraction, bounding off the cave walls in blinding, iridescent rays. Everything begins to shake.

The heart’s system thrashes. My grip loosens. The muscular mass strains, swells, splits. Collapses inward, combusting under its own rhythm. The walls follow.

This place cannot hold shape.

All squelch into grey.

Leave a comment

Thanks for letting me try out a lil bit of fiction, minus a few of the typical bells + whistles.

You telling me your thoughts of any kind is my FAVORITE & most cherished part of sharing work. Please leave a comment !

& subscribeee (if u want) <3

Subscribe now

- ! SCROLL FOR PLAIN TEXT ! -

“Double-Slit Experiment”

Infrapink
electrobeam
burning
across
a black field,
aimed through
your sight
i am the
ray.
i am
the red line.

Two
apertures
await.

You watch
me
refuse
to stay
one thing
so i
split.

Interfeared. Refined. Wavy. Double-defined.

Your gaze grids me in superpositions.

You analyze my display.

How is that all i am,

if i hold symmetric space?

Your look locks in the shape i take.

i anticipate attention, attenuate

where you look, i'm light, never

di fr ac ti ng

Projecting the image you came to see.

Unfazed under pressure, narrowed by view.

Sharp. Centered. Fixed. Ruby arrow.

Pattern reflecting not me, but you.

You will say this was only an experiment,

that your role is not serious

but you have changed my outcome

just by observing it.

thank you for being here !

there is so much to say, but i ought not. i’ve said enough ! :P

selfishly, i would love to hear your thoughts though.

Leave a comment

Hearing from you is my favorite part about writing. i value all your ideas + opinions !

& plz subscribe if u enjoyed !! <3

Subscribe now

— click the audio for a dually read performance of this piece! —

- Scroll for plain text! -

type written by collaged by

“Before Man Gave it Name”

the wilderness silent
that cold and 
crooked night

Saturn,
dwelling in the firmament
bore witness
to the first man
formed from dust
and returned to it. 

below

Shachal descends from high places 
into the cold,
into the black.

He moves without sound
as water cuts through rock'
and teeth through bone.

Ayalah thirsts after the water brooks 
so thirsts death for life.

Shachal hastens not
the blacks knows him
yields to him;
though it too will take him
as it took his father
before Man gave it name. 

Saturn,
beheld Shachal before
and shall behold him again
and shall behold the last one
descend from the high places
into the black
and none shall follow. 

the stars quiet
their light trembles

the black is older 
than chayyim
that did rise from rock
and name itself. 

Shachal does not attend it;
the nefesh in them;
familiar

water stills in channels;
wind withdraws.

Ayalah lifts her head 
but learns only her echo

and Pluto waits;
impending dark. 

Ayalah's hooves 
trouble the stream
the valley stills

Shachal breaks the silence,
stone loosed from the hill,
teeth find the throat
where nefesh keeps.

and above the valley
Ayit circles
patient. 

Shachal feeds
in high places

Saturn returns to midnight's cloak

Ayit descends 
to what remains

Pluto receives nefesh

and the fire breaks the eastern black,
igniting the firmament;
the celestial king in his chariot
rides upon the mountains,
the sun in his strength

He commanded the heavens to pour forth
and purple spilled upon the high places
and gold into the valley
and crimson bleeds in the still water
and the heavens
open blue above. 

and below,

the first man beheld this
and he called it sunrise
and this he called good.

please SUBSCRIBE to the incredibly talented

Sincerity is Scary

The Void In Me

I was drunk…

Read more

3 months ago · 13 likes · 5 comments · Sigh, Ontology.

Sincerity is Scary

Toy Store

My inner child experiences the world through the parts of me that have aged…

Read more

3 months ago · 17 likes · Sigh, Ontology.

Sincerity is Scary

Little Yellow House

Do you remember it the way I do…

Read more

3 months ago · 18 likes · 5 comments · Sigh, Ontology.

Thank you so much for reading! Please let us know what you thought of the piece.

Leave a comment

&& please subscribe to me too!! <3

Subscribe now

alright so let me start this off by saying F * C K Substack formatting.

Please enjoy, “Syzygy”

Leave a comment

I’m begging you to tell me your thoughts, interpretations, resonations (is that a word? idk.)

Thank you for reading <3 I genuinely appreciate it.

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

“Neither of Us is Making the Other Feel Better”

We sit on the porch, 
stare at trees weeping green.
Their leaves, lachrymose
emeralds dripping saline.

Both haunting the grounds
of the same hoarder house,
so overfull, the trash takes us out. 

So we sit in silence,
yard dogs in the rain.
Leashes tied
to a lightning-struck tree,
our dreams washed down the drain.

No comforts, no shelter,
just us and this weather. 

Neither of us is making
the other feel better.

Two moths circling 
the same dim flame
in the corner of the attic 
with the other dusty things.
I say we’re the same,
you chew clean through my seams, 
see the holes in everything.

Playing handmade paper dolls 
in a cigar-box mansion,
hands kissed with splinters
and open paper cuts.

Pretending is enough 
when what I say devastates her.

Neither of us is making
the other feel better.

So we live in silence,
bad dogs in the rain,
muzzles tied to keep us from barking,
our words lost down the drain.

No comforts, no shelter,
just us and this weather. 

Neither of us 

is making

the other 

feel better.

Well y’all, once again, thank you for reading if you made it this far.<3

I’d originally written this to be a song. I think I will eventually bring that idea to fruition, but I love the freedom of poetry, and this version feels like the most honest so far.

Oh, and look out for COME TO ROT COUNTRY coming March 30th! annnnnndddddd a collaboration with , THIS IMMORTAL COIL COMING SOON!

Ok. Luv you. Byee. 😚

—Ramona Moth

Leave a comment

This poem was written about six months ago and scheduled prior to current events. The timing is coincidental, but felt necessary to address.

Subscribe now

read along & listen. hope you enjoy (:

“Parking Lot”

I was smoking in the parking lot,
right under the sign that forbade it.
The first class’s stress relieved
from my cracked vape
in a silver trail
like winter breath. 

It was August. 

The radio played nothing but static
when your car eased in
with the same cautious crawl
campus security used 
to tell me
I didn’t belong there
without a parking pass. 

You looked at me,
and kept moving
like you always do in public. 

I took a long drag,
held it
until the row of beat-up cars
swallowed your one working tail light.

A copper taste caught my tongue.
Nicotine, I figured.

But it stung. 

The summer sun swelled red 
like a white rat’s eye
watching, looking in
from its nest-hole in the sky. 

You ran up the sidewalk
as noon bruised into dusk,
the same soiled color
I’d only seen on moldy fruit. 

Cars convulsed in their spaces,
their horns screaming out,
the lot’s final plea for help. 

I got out too, 
slamming my dented door,
because some part of me
needed to be accounted for. 

The crucifix on St. Mary’s 
snapped clean at the center
with a dry, chalky pop,
struck Wolff Hall, 
and fell like snow. 

There was so much we didn’t say.
Now none of it mattered. 

The asphalt rippled between us,
slow, measured, deliberate,
like something ancient underneath
had finally risen. 

I fell to my knees.
You ran to me,
jaw clenched with regret,
concern winning 
as it always does with you. 

You said my name
through gritted teeth,
a child's apology, 

then grabbed my arm
the way you first touched me,
the same tentative tug
a child gives a balloon,
curious 
about the consequences
of letting go. 

I didn’t move. 

Behind us, bricks shook free,
spilling like grain 
from a silo 
when its system 
unloads. 

“We should go,” you warned. 
“Where?” I pulled away,
because nowhere left
felt safe. 

And then everything stilled,

as if the world inhaled,
ribcage lifted, 
waiting for the command
to collapse. 

You looked at me,
longer this time, 
the last familiar face
in a town with 
no welcome sign. 

Streetlights across campus
blinked out one by one
in discordant succession,
until only the bulb above you
remained. 

The light drew your shadow long, 
touching me 
a way you never did
in the daylight.

The sidewalk caved in,

and only then
did you look afraid.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far. <3

This one felt like making a kind of movie for my writing. I really hope you enjoyed it!

Does anyone really read this part?

If you are, I just want to say I am beyond thankful and truly humbled to have even one person interacting with my work.

Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou

Oh, and look out for NEITHER OF US IS MAKING THE OTHER FEEL BETTER coming MARCH 13th!

—Ramona Moth

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

“Like Me”

I want you 
to want 
to be me

a pearl unstrung
grit in its shine, 
mouthful of creek
biting the line.

I want you to
follow me down
deep enough to drown,
your gloss going dim
on my silt-wound skin,
you gulp, then swallow,

I want you to follow.

Held under with me,
the mouth of the creek
unstrings the thread
of the precious bead,
gnaws it free. 

You shimmer like me,
briefly,
then less.
 
I want 
you 

to
enmesh.

Leave a comment

Well y’all, once again, thank you for reading.

Should we go fishing? :P

I’m always cooking up more to share, that I just can’t wait to post. As always, I’m writing, editing, deleting, rewriting, pacing, muttering, communing with the dead in the meantime.

Oh, and look out for PARKING LOT coming March 3rd!
Ok. Luv you. Byee. 😚

—Ramona Moth

“Your Creature”

By Ramona Moth

Look at me.
Do not shield your eyes.
Do not anesthetize.
Look at me.

Come here.
Close enough
to feel my static
lift your hair.
Come here.

Leave thought
with your 
contaminated coat
on the chair.

I am the experiment
in a sterile laboratory,
a creature kept alive 
only by your careful study
tripping the alarms when I shift,
bolted down at the wrist. 

You made me

conductive
to the touch. 

So, touch.

Make contact.

Strip me of insulation.

If I am to shock, 

please,

let it be by touch.

Leave a comment

Surpriseeee!!

Once again, thank you for reading if you made it this far.<3

Happy Valentines day! Tu veux être mon Valentine?

I’m always cooking up more to share. As always, I’ll be writing, editing, deleting, rewriting, pacing, muttering, and communing with the dead in the meantime.

Oh, and look out for LIKE ME coming to you February 28th!

Ok, luv you, bye. 😚

—Ramona Moth

Subscribe now

“Holding Onto You”

By Ramona Moth

We take 
a winding trail, 
silver thread through pines. 
Each turn, another tight knot
you tie.

Then,
you, anxious weaver,
get trapped in your own web,
by golden, fraying twine 
instead. 

Both silks
braid our hands.
I feel the pull, your will,
and with our four hands 
I whisper,

“Stay still.”

Leave a comment

Thank you for reading.<3

Look out for a surprise coming to your inbox tomorrow!

Ok. Luv you. Byee. 😚

—Ramona Moth

Subscribe now

Pain is the cigarette
my best friend lit
and fed me.
Immediate cough.
Slow, bitter,
ember lip.
I pulled so hard
tar dragged the floor
of my lungs,
sinking into
the dark animal box
of me.
She disappeared
in the smoke I spit.

I take
a winding trail,
where silver-capped pine cones
tangle our manes together now. 
Braided.

The forest exhales,
fog tendrils like spilled secrets.
God forgot this place.

That ripping diner seat
stuffed with vintage-pink receipts.
I order my specialty,
a caffeine necessity 
and one stale, cherry-filled sweet.

Spill milk,
crack a mirror, 
lay your hat on my bed, 
cross my path with a black kitten. 
What’s luck?

River runs backward,
carrying the drowned upstream,
memory undone.

Susan,
pale and black-eyed,
looks for her man outside
from the same pot every day. 
Planted.

Crows pluck the last fruit,
red pulp dripping on tombstones,
summer’s throat is cut.

A girl with crow feathers for hair
whispered a spell as a prayer.
To the cratered old moon,
said, “maledictum,”
left a puff of black smoke in the air.

Open
the book of the
fox. See what he foretells.
Read the trickster’s scripture with your
mind’s eye.

My childhood haunts
me like a ghost in a shell
making ocean sounds.

Veils of web are draped,
branches like patient brides,
prey wound into their vows.

Fire illuminated the underbelly of the trees, 
exposing all the silvery branches and leaves, 
casting a warmth spread wide enough 
to make the shed glow a crimsony red.

Rotten, brown-green leaves,
summer's beauty molds,
the garden is laid to rest.

Petals,
powdered, still pink,
pressed flat in a glass frame,
like your apology blooms here,
too late.

Candy,
a pink regret,
your kiss and gum ball coins. 
The air still tastes too sweet to be
savory.

Linens,
warm as promised,
folded like a white swan.
Even the sheets wear a fancy 
costume.

Moss grips the cold cross,
something crawls along the stone,
“Remember my touch.”

Indigo waters,
reflecting moon’s broad craters,
ripple calls to me.

Carry
me on your back,
my arms around your neck,
through all the scratchy bramble grass.
Just us.

Opal,
porcelain ghost,
a creak across the floor.
Something forgotten is breathing.
Don’t move.

Now we're in a duel between two liars
playing our roles with pants on fire,
performing with the curtains drawn
the doors all locked,
audience, gone.

We kept our distance,
trading a single glance,
as the solid ground shifted across campus,
like the ground had been a dirty rug;
lifted and shaken.

Cold cut through the early glow
precise and surgical,
then the rumbling shifted;
a low, metallic screech
like a train breaking,
begging to breach 
before it crushes whatever’s waiting
on the tracks. 

Wanting
kept me gnawing.
Even when nothing came,
my teeth kept grinding and chewing.
Hungry.

I wish there was a zipper
in the center of my forehead,
to unzip myself slowly,
where the teeth catch 
at the ribs.
I would step out 
damp and shaking,
lay my body on the floor
like a shed thing.
I’d knock the bones together
to see which ones still ring.
If they don’t,
I’d bury them,
give them permission
to stop holding me.

Cherry
girl in your mouth,
bloody sugar dripping
down. You forgot there even was
the pit.

“You are clean. He has forgiven.”
We repeated,
again,
and only stopped 
when 
given permission.

All spells are short
and cast a sound,
lasts far beyond
the rhyme of gone 
with gone.
A gun is a kind of wand.

Knee-deep in my nightmare,
the same as always,
I bite into an apple,
expect the sweet,
golden taste.
Instead I bite a pink,
fleshy thing that squirms.
Too late, I realize
and swallow
the worm.

Smoke drifts;
translucent jellyfish
pulsing through the air.

That night, rain pittered
on the mausoleum roof.
We slept close.
cut feet, raw throats,
legs twisted in wet grass,
waiting
for whatever
He might forgive.

Today I carried
my bones like a house key.
used, cold, necessary.

You placed it firmly in my hand,
a prop, you said,
a stand-in thing. 
Cold metal. Plastic grip.
Too heavy for pretending.

Well y’all, once again, thank you for reading if you made it this far.<3

I’m always cooking up more to share, that I just can’t wait to post. As always, I’m writing, editing, deleting, rewriting, pacing, muttering, communing with the dead in the meantime.

Oh, and look out for HOLDING ONTO YOU coming February 13th!

Ok, luv you, bye. 😚

—Ramona Moth

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

“I HOPE IT STINGS”

By Ramona Moth

I hope it stings
when you see through honey-glazed eyes,
just far enough to swat
what you could have clutched. 

Velvet-slick,
iridescent exoskeleton,
shielding something rarer beneath.
Something worth pinning on glass.

I hope it stings
when it cracks,
fractures webbing through amber mold. 
Trapped aching.
Trapped angry.

Emptied into a hollow husk,
silk spun from something soft,
left gooey, viscous,
unmetamorphosed.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

“Becoming”

By Ramona Moth

I am a rabbit. A rabbit with long, fluffy ears, and glassy black-bead eyes that look lovingly at the leafy meadow I’ve always known: cotton ball tails, butterflies, and bees buzz by in a blissful blur.

I am a rabbit with soft, gray fur and a small, pink nose that takes in the familiar, comforting air: Savory wildflowers. Spicy pine. Sour onion grass.

But, there’s something else today. Something new. Something sweet.

I follow it.

The scent pulls me from my meadow. It never crossed my mind, until today, that the meadow was a place you could leave.

But, at the forest’s edge, the trees line like velvet curtains, concealing what's inside.

I take a peek.

I am a rabbit, and now the woods stretch out before me, looming and heavy. Shadows fall differently here, like curling claws reaching out to grab. The air hangs hot and dry and still. The ground beneath my thumping feet turns pokey, and my ears twitch at the sharp sounds of the forest. I don’t recognize these sounds.

Snap

What was that?

Crack

But that sweet smell, grossly, gloriously sweet now, calls me further into the shade.

There, through the thick gloom, I see where it has led me: yellow and white freckles climbing the bark of an oak tree. Honeysuckle.

Snap

A flash of orange.

A slender, slinking fox with eyes like full, pale moons. It crouches low, shoulders hunched, a corn-yellow grin stretching across its face. Its mud packed paws sink into the melting earth as it stalks toward me. It’s too close now. Much too close.

I am a rabbit, and I’ve gone too far. The moon eyes fix and freeze me in place. The grin stretches wider, drool dripping from each tooth.

But then something changes. Something in me exhales.

My jaw begins to stretch, then more than stretch, unhinge. My once small teeth grow into gnashing, razor-sharp fangs, curving like sickles, growing until they’re big, stone sabers. My soft gray fur bristles, tearing away as something furious festers and fizzes beneath. My once empty eyes burn revenge red.

The fox falters, frozen mid step. Its eyes widen, and its body shrinks into a quivering ball of ginger fur and fear. I find something new: I am fed by this flicker of fright.

I am growing now, cracking open, expanding with an unstoppable wrath. I am a mausoleum, towering above the fox, as tall as the trees around me. As jagged and immovable.

Now I’m the one who grins.

The rabbit is gone. I’ve shed that skin.

Leave a comment