“We’re so hungry. We’re so thirsty.
I’m gonna hunt until it hurts me.
And it’s aching. We’re so thirsty.
We’re gonna make a little money,
and we’ll buy a little mercy.”
I read something about a wolf
who dreams it is a man who dreams
it is a wolf.
I am driving alone now.
I notice the sunset looks like
melted sherbet, and my stomach
turns at the thought. I chastise myself
for ruining something beautiful
with my thinking.
Earlier I accidentally made a joke
about how I often wake up at night
and move to the couch because
I like feeling close
to something.
It is fortunate that my will
to endure is equally
as humbling.
And yet I can’t stop trying
to ease this pain, kicking
the dark water when I should
have faith enough to simply
float.
It is fortunate that
I have a way with
death.
I revive myself—coughing,
wet, unamused—only to do
the same thing again
tomorrow.
My gods turn away, bored
with my garish
reenactments.
For fifty dollars, another
insists I accept the void,
my fate, my feelings.
I grapple anew.
It is fortunate that
I have a way with
life.
I grow strangely weary
of walking on two legs.
I am cold in this pitiful
film of skin, lonesome
in this pack. I lick
my teeth alone in the dark
and kick in my sleep,
dreaming of flesh.
Today, it was kind and warm
in the valley. But that sun
can’t touch the tundra
I call home.
I wrap myself in furs,
listen to the voices
on the other side of the
wall, and know that
something here is
very wrong.
I’ve been barefoot
in bathrooms—pulse
like a siren, hands like
white flags—that felt
safer than this
year.
I wonder
what I am doing
here.
I wonder
what other ways
and fortunes
await me.
- Cierra Lowe, 2026