february 9th

paper dolls with paper dresses, abandoned under your twin bed

made friends with the dust bunnies inside your room

now they have forgotten about you too

just how you have forgotten about them

— just how everybody forgets about you

your mother says she is worried about you

and she drives you to talk to a woman in a little room

with tea and sofas and peeling pale yellow wallpaper every week

and every week, she expects you to say something, anything

— yet you are silent, by some force compelling you

this is to be expected, as even you, as even your mother

cannot recall the last time you opened your mouth to speak sentences

to utter coherent words except for help me and please

and the act of keeping your mouth screwed shut is natural now, muscle memory

— and it feels wrong to open your mouth, unnatural

you, too, are unnatural

says the woman in the little room with tea and sofas and peeling pale yellow wallpaper

says your mother with increasingly more worrisome lines on her forehead day by day

says your peers in the classroom you have stopped attending due to personal circumstances

— says the note from your mother (who was really you)

and, anyway, your mother cares little that you are home now every day

glued to the confines of your bed with the abandoned paper dolls under it

because everyone forgets

even your paper dolls, even the dust bunnies

— even your mother

after all, after february 9th

— after february 9th

— after february 9th

— after february 9th

you are nothing

— but a ghost

This piece has previously been published in Purely Liminal Magazine.