The face in the window /
Much like a small moon /
Pitted and reflecting /
The light from my lamp /

Dawn pressed his lips to the horizon and Sky blushed like a schoolgirl. All pink and pastel, she twirled her birds up into the winds.

Panic Attack: WAKE UP THERE’S A BEAR

Me: what no there’s not

Panic Attack: BEARS EVERYWHERE

A swarm of moths, not butterflies—not yellow sunny-sweet nerves, but a gray chill of disquiet—swarmed through her.

They named me Diana /
they vilify me on their news reports /
they say that I’m insane, a category five /

Every day, Niska climbed the rope ladder into the harbor of the sky to watch the cloud boats sail.

The constellation wrapping her torso—Tapez, the Winged Warrioress—flared crisp and bright through her clothes in the darkness of the late evening.

Something prehistoric, a vast predatory thing, it poses as a tree with root-like talons, and feathers that pass as leaves.

Success looks like crying at night /
when you’ve overcome the ticking /
of the clock, ever listing what it wants /

How do I tell you I no longer lift my hands /
Or grind my knees down to the guilt /

There, a small twinge in my armpit/
I’m sure it’s nothing bad /
It’s happened for the last three days /
I try not to think of that /

Luce wiped sweat from her eyes. Her knees hurt from kneeling on the skyroof, nailing shingles where the clouds had fallen through.

There’s a swing that appears /
on overcast days—not when it rains /
no, and not when it sprinkles, but when the /
geese honk overhead in giant arrows in the sky /

The candy cane walrus visits Olly when her parents fight. She calls him that because his tusks spiral red and white, like candy canes. She snuggles against him, and he blocks her ears with his thick coat.

In that time between interesting things /
We Rests flourish /
During the whirling wheel /

The house is clean so there’s nothing to stop me /
The dishes are fed and asleep /
The curtains are bare and looking out sweetly /
The nightstands are two whiskeys deep /

Lir tapped a rhythm on her leg, reading her magazine on extraterrestrial plants. The plastic rose hanging from her mirror redirected the sunlight, creating a pink gleam on her cheek.

My skin crawled off me onto the washing room’s tile floor, then skittered up the wall.

Nimia pulled her body along the underground tunnel with her muscled arms, one grip at a time. She passed the pods where other Pullers, like herself, worked, their hands plugged into the company interface.

I crossed my arms over my book, the sidewalk cool against my thighs. The emerging summer evening shimmered with a morse code of fireflies, and the orange sunlight smelled like watermelon at the height of sweetness. A perfect bookend to the day if Ranas would just leave me alone.