live and misunderstand why the day begins with my gut grumbling over yesterday, and the promise we made to stop talking about me moving away, far far away. Why I keep the shades down in the morning, to protect my eyes from the blinding light. Why I read books for a good ending, even when the middle is slow, and the beginning doesn’t make sense. Why some characters don’t suffer enough meaningful torture, in 400 plus pages, to make me care about them. And my favourite genre is fantasy, grimdark-with-a-heart. I can read about gruesome battles all day, as long as the crows kerah kerah somewhere outside, and I forget that the supermoon is tonight, the last moon of August. I just want to uncover the mystery of my mother, her tricky language. I can barely make out when she addresses me with twice as many syllables, like she’s in a hurry to get rid of the words in her mouth: You’re too pale, you need more sun. Good advice that is meant to be helpful becomes a poison that makes my heart hardened and envious towards itself. I want to become a stranger stuck in fantastical circumstances I will never be in. Not me, because I am stuck in my head. I overanalyze the real me that I confront in mirrors. They remind me that my hair is growing out white in places, though I am only 29, and the look of my body is different all the time—a new wrinkle is creasing my forehead; an old wound on my thumb is fading, a heart-shaped scab I must have known was there, except I didn’t. It is the same reddish-brown colour of my eyeshadow; and a new roll of fat is spilling over my jeans. I am afraid that this phenomena and the body I have are a good fit, just not for me. I’ve never been good with change. I need someone confident to help me with accepting the loose and ordinary wisdom of skin. I am whatever I am. At least, as my nightgown is hanging in the closet, and the day is folding over me gently, I must wear it now.

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Sarah-Marissa Marquez is an MLIS student based in Los Angeles. She has work published and forthcoming in various magazines and journals, including Madrigal Press, Mud Season Review, Salamander, SHIFT, and Statement Magazine. When not writing, she can be found on Threads @smclaire.jmj, X and Bluesky @Sarahmarissa338, and exploring the fediverse @sarahmarissa_mz@creativewriting.social.