Kallie Falandays

Come closer, come wider, come open my windows.

Come closer, come wider, come open my windows.
I came into your room and I unlocked your cage.
I tried to feed you winged things:

one angel story about trying to fly but forgetting how to open;
one ghost story, the one in which I remembered you writhing;
one tiny wing clipped from the underside of a fairy-thing;
one looming fan,
one wailing hand.
I tried to remind you from where you came.
Tell me the opposite of ceiling light.
The opposite of tapestry.
The opposite of opera.
I tried to give you memory holds:
Broken night, dirt, a finger’s whisper.

I tried to remind you of the before-morning-time:
the opposite of infinity, the opposite of no, the opposite of no,
the backwards hand-pull of moonlight. I tried
to pull you out of your blankets:
Your face was dripping in my head all morning.

She thinks of places to hide.

She thinks of places to hide. Rips up the carpet and slits herself inside. The ground pulses under her back. She moves quietly around the kitchen thinking of watching someone watch her. Goes to sleep in the dark, wishing for it like a blanket. Pretends she didn’t think of him. She wants to go back. To go back back. She unscrews all of the cabinets and hides the bolts in her bedroom. Paints every mirror black and more than that, all the windows. Tries to hide everything inside of itself, so it won’t see her leaving.

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Kallie Falandays has poems in PANK, Black Warrior Review, Salt Hill, december, and elsewhere. She runs Tell Tell Editing and is the managing editor of Kenning journal.