I was born cold and upside down as a full-grown woman with wings. I have been told my whole life that I am a woman, but I’ve never been sure of anything. I am more sure of God than I am my personhood. I am after you, your family, and their covered wagon. I will die young I’m sure of it. Oil eats away at the canvas I was drawn upon that now lives in a private collection. The occult knows me better than the quiet things you think I don’t hear. My pupils have become smaller and the whites in my eyes are going to burst if I don’t fly to the moon. In 1939 a man claimed to be a bat just like me. I know he will be remembered in your dreams. But somebody has to have sleep paralysis, someone has to wake up in a cold sweat, someone has to see something they can’t explain in the night sky. My fingers will twitch above my head, my chest will be bare. No one will believe you even though I looked so real. Erotism is not for dreamers. But no human has been a dreamer since the industrial revolution.
Merlin Gerhard is a student at SOU who is currently pursuing a BFA in Creative Writing. They love everything whimsical and peculiar. They are a proud father of two lovely Labrador retrievers Poe and Flower.
Main Squeeze Literary Journal 