You can see bones in her slender neck—
like ******* knuckles gripping the back
of a dining chair.


She hums a love song while staring at the pages of a romance
novel, grey tea cooling beside her, sun fading from the room.


Her canary dropped dead in its cage. The mailbox hasn’t been
checked for days…

She has ‘Once upon a time’ tattooed on the inner lining
of her lungs, ‘Happily ever after’ carved in each finger-bone.

She is the one roses wilt for—the ghost of a fairy tale left
to a room with only the memory
of birdsong.