symbiotic ovenbird When she wakes it’s in a place she’s never seen, a bed that isn’t hers, with a body draped over her edges like an old fitted sheet. She finds arms around her that belong to someone else, breath gathering at the back of her neck. She thinks, for a moment, that the breath belongs to one she loves, but it can’t be, because this mouth takes without asking, these hands grasp without invitation, this man calls her his own, and comes to collect what he is owed. He’ll grind himself to release on the curved slope of her lower back and sneer at her disgust. When he fades into the floral print of the duck down duvet, she leaves the room and slides through the house on feet made silent by fear and shame. The walls are hung with murals, tempera paint smudges in the shape of greyhounds, faces tapered to determined points, lithe bodies stretched so thin they slip through the cracks between the floorboards, running, running, and leaving her behind. Where the backyard used to be there is now a lake and she opens the door to a world submerged in brackish water. If she could, she would distill her body down to a single cell, a ciliate thing, unthinking, touching the green expanse of algae with a thousand tiny fingers. She would let herself be swallowed by someone with kind hands and gentle lips, and find peace in mutualistic care. She can fix the nitrogen. He can provide more sweetness than she could ever hope to swallow. 260304 what's it to you? who go blather from