BURNING HOUSE PRESS

the somnambulists

by Kristy Bowen

The soil was bad, so we buried our bodies in it. Filled the bathtub with mud and
ssicks. Tiny worms crawling between our toes and along our eyelashes. Decay settling
into our teeth and bones. Stones over our eyes and branch rot caught in our throats.
No one could find us, we were so well hidden. Bedding down with strangers and
devouring the pantry where we crept nightly, frightening house cats. Their fur matted
with blood from the latest kill. At school, we’d fall asleep at our desks, rescue the dead
from the forest road. Dress them like dolls in the cupboard.

Our mother wept in the cellar, father in the car park, where the headlights swerved
against our brightened bodies. Where did we harbor such anger in slight forms? All
our dreams filled with the dead we’d quiet with stones over their eyes and lips. But
still, they spoke. Omens and hymns they delivered, their eyes shining like lanterns in
the meadow.

Kristy Bowen lives and writes in Chicago, where she creates dark poem-ish things, lyric essays, hybrid fiction, and  design/decor/diy content for various websites and publications.  She is the author of numerous books, chapbooks, zines, and artists books, including a recent collection of poems, WILD(ISH).  For the past two decades, she’s blogged about writing, art, horror films, thrifting, and other miscellany at DULCETLY: NOTES ON A BOOKISH LIFE. Raised in the wilds of northern Illinois, she currently inhabits a beautiful, but drafty, art deco building near the lake with her cats, her husband, too many books, and a vast collection of thrifted finds–only some of which are haunted.