GirlSense and NonSense Evolution: A GirlSense and NonSense Anthology | Page 18

The poison drips steadily into my skull.

Lice are feeding. They are carnivorous.

She is biting away at my life.

I am merely a husk.

She watches me lie awake at night.

She lives in me, breathing,

Locking my heart away in a chamber

Where nothing moves.

Where the air freezes to ice.

I wait for a sound.

There is no end.

I remember the beginning: a death.

For years

We are white with exhaustion at what this thing is.

It is the last night of our lives.

Tomorrow I’ll be gone.

She is alive. Look:

It is beginning to hatch.

But it is dark. So dark.

I can barely see my own reflection in the mirror.

There is just some stranger.

We try to catch the pieces of me

Before they shatter forever.

Misted snow drifts over the remains.

The Murmurings

By Natalie Crick

GirlSense and NonSense