“Tiny Stones” – Leah Horlick

Whether or not it was you
who set off the firecracker in my backyard, all that matters
is that I thought
it was you,

writing to the landlords I’m just sending this to you now
so that in the morning
I don’t think that this was a dream.

I await the presence of someone who understands
the genetic impact of a siren. I pull a siren
around me and glow silent, I pull a web of nerve endings

over my own face and touch everything like it is covered in dust—
dust is a shawl, dust is a veil of static. I reach a hand through
thick white noise towards a feeling.

Everything you say sends me further into myself
whether you like it or not, whether you mean it.

I fell off the horse into a bush of thorns and it was a choice between
the thorns and the hooves—can you guess which I chose?

I overwhelm my house with peonies.
When I go home I shut the door and my

eyes and my phone in a drawer
and I sleep. In the morning I look at the Internet to remember

what I look like. I drink so much water
I boil everything—

basil and rose petals,
yarrow and chamomile,

eyeliner and sitting in the dark theatre.

I slowly weigh myself
down with tiny stones.

I hide another set
of eyes beneath my dress.

I slowly accept that this new scar will come out
every time I sit
in the sun.

Sometimes I call it having a flashback.

Other times I just
like to have everything
in one place to get a good hard look
at my life.

these words by Leah Horlick were inspired by the work of Olaf Hajek