lotus_feet ovenbird I knew this house well once, the particular maze of its halls, the closet full of flannel sheets, the way the damp tendencies of the basement were dispelled by the wood burning stove. But now I see it’s been rewilding for years. The furniture is gone, swallowed by the floors. What I take for yellowed wallpaper is the curling skin of a stand of paper birch. There’s a forest trying to assert itself, though I still recognize the rooms, which are struggling to retain their shape. The front door is still clinging to its hinges and I hear my mother calling from the landing, ready to take me home. I sit on the floor and try to put on my shoes. I’m holding the low heels I wore on my wedding day, the white leather cracked and scuffed. I can’t get my foot in. No matter how I try, the shoes crush my toes and twist my metatarsals and refuse to stretch to accommodate the span of my arches. I tear skin from the back of my heels as I force them down. Then I stand and walk, unsteady and hobbling, my feet bound tight like the noble women of China who were not expected to support their own weight. I stumble. And all around me the birch bark curls, like fingers beckoning, like a trap being set, like a parent calling a wayward child. 260528 what's it to you? who go blather from