The morning after was different for me than most.

It was a morning I crawled out of,

all the seasons of fear still thick on my tongue,

belly clenched like a fist.

Sometimes kissing is something beautiful,

a psalm whispered under the breath in church,

an extra hummingbird at the feeder,

and sometimes it leads to something

that breaks you like a hammer.

This is how birds hurt their wings.

This is how the morning I crawled from

became the life I will never walk out of.

Ask me what my nightmares look like

and I’ll draw you his face

or his hands, because those are the things

that haunt me the most.

 

 

 

 

Meggie Royer is a writer and photographer from the Midwest. Her poems have previously appeared in Words Dance Magazine, Winter Tangerine Review, Chanter Literary Magazine, Literary Sexts Volume 1, Hooligan Magazine, and Rib Cage Chicago Literary Magazine. In March 2013 she won a National Gold Medal for her poetry collection and a National Silver Medal for her writing portfolio in the 2013 National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

 

Cassoday Harder is a twenty-year-old photographer inspired by youth, femininity, and summer. View more of her work on Flickr or visit her website.