Reality, Incarcerated.

You were never meant to linger here,
Natalie,
do somersaults in my belly
chill my bloodstream
mess with my brain.

You are a menace to me,
Natalie,
your gaze nails me to the wall
renders me slow and confused
drives a wedge between him and me.

You do not have a right to them,
Natalie,
(not really).
You’re nothing if not substance
nothing before, nothing beyond
nothing, at all.

But above all, you shouldn’t have left them,
Natalie,
because how were you to know?
That I would pick them up where you left them
rock them
feed them
change them
love them?

I suppose you knew by knowing them.

Come back.
Leave me now,
come back,
and be their mother.

My first short story, Natalie, was published earlier this month in the American Literary Journal ‘The Delmarva Review’. I am humbled to be featured shoulder to shoulder with real writers that have been practicing and polishing their craft for years. The idea for my story stems from my deepest subconscious and plays with the concept of reality, a layered experience in each and every one of us that is subject to our own interpretation, yet a noun carrying meaning in our collective consciousness. When it loses touch with what we – the vast majority in the human community – agree is the truth, we call this experience a psychosis. My unnamed narrator tells the story of existence from her point of view, and it is up to the reader to pick the version that agrees with them.
I hope that I, the author – I must use this adjective because it creates such delicious shivers! – convey my compassion for this lost soul who is temporarily overwhelmed by her shame, fear and the weight of being a human in charge of leading and protecting other humans.

The Delmarva Review, Volume 13, can be accessed here.