Disappearing

by Hallie Pritchett


I walked into the house where we lived – 
Head low, heart hopeful that I’d find something I’d forgotten.
I must have left something else here, you know,
besides all of those things I can’t get back.
I walked in and the snow blew through the door
and I realized again, it’s winter here. It is always winter here
and I saw you everywhere I looked. Even when I wasn’t looking for you,
you were just out of my peripheral on the staircase to my left. 
I had not been back there since we died. Since you killed me
and I got justice by becoming a murderer, too. 
The first time I wrote about something that was not you
was also about you. You know that. You know you get
to live forever, and I get to live forever
stuck in one moment.
Make it a fourth car smashed into the snowbank.
Make it quick. 
If it’s what you came for, crash the car. If you’ll die wondering
what an airbag feels like, crash the car. Let it bruise you.
Let me be the snow. Let me be in the snow without wondering
where you are disappearing.


* * * * *

Hallie Pritchett has no credentials. She lives in a shoebox apartment next to a Southern college campus. Eventually, she hopes to experience a Bible-level miracle. She does not clean that apartment enough, but she can do a backflip off of a diving board if it’s high enough off the ground, and in her mind that ought to count for something.