By: Nicole Moon

i am quite a messy person. i am insecure. i eat too much, or not enough. i sleep and dream the same way, erratically. some days my heart beats too fast, faster than i can keep up with, and other days i don’t feel it beating in my chest at all and i wonder if i am still alive or if this some kind of sick joke in which i feel “being,” but i am not. My bones don’t sit quite as softly in my skin like i used to remember them and now i find fault in every blemish of my being and in all of the places that used to carry a childish wonder.

my ability to grasp and swallow useless facts about the stars or blue whales is no longer something i hold onto closely in the palms of my hands, but rather something else that steals away my attention from the important things. and if you ask me what they are, these important things i cannot seem to stay focused on, but neither let go, i promise you that i could not even begin to name a single thing. life is far too grand, and i far too small, i feel.

and these days my body feels like a house poorly constructed by a god who doesn’t know what it meant to be (human). the yellow wallpaper constantly peeling and crumbling away, the rooms misshapen, the furniture tossed about like orphaned children and other seemingly unloved things, and the windows and doors far too small to let passing through. and there’s a knocking, always a knocking, a ringing throughout the halls, trapped between the walls, but no one is ever there.

two hundred sixty-four moons have blossomed and withered since i have taken up residence in my skin, my bones, and crawled into this world. how come i still cannot find the courage to live comfortably in my own skin?

most days, rather than repainting the walls, and finding love in the oddity of my ill built rooms, i spend my time wondering if i ever will come to love this skin i’ve been born into. i wonder if the haunting will ever go away, or will i have to get used to the constant knocking?

Nicole Moon is a twenty-something year old writer of sorts, currently residing somewhere in the southwest. So far some of her work has found a home at Figroot Press. In her spare time, she can be found daydreaming about completely unexpected, yet ordinary events.