sun sallowed, sunken eyes— we swallow
each other before dusk. cemetery gates
flutter open. darkness is only an idea
we believe with all our shadowed selves, throats
cracked with mourning, blackened bits of voices
in the grass. i am the youngest, loving
each tomb more than the last: children
of stone that need my imaginary arms
to hold them close. this is what i have always
wanted. the others are older, sing
with hollowed mouths to bind the dead. in the dark
we can’t see ourselves. limbs fill
with what we want to be, hills seize
our false ankles and begin the cycle
of dragging missing bodies into earth. truth
is, we died long ago. truth is, we will never
die. truth means nothing as night slips
through our fists—
we dance on the graves of ghosts.
Ana Carpenter is a high school junior at Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago, Illinois. Her work has appeared in Polyphony Lit and Rare Byrd Review. When she’s not writing, she can be found reading, exploring, and shamelessly defending the YA genre.