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Nikyla Maria

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The hallway

more walls. it’s 3:14am somewhere.

Written on the bathroom wall: There is no poetry in the tile at 2am, just a body trying to purge the words it was too afraid to scream and a heart that beats too loudly for a room this small.
Written in magenta on a closet wall: the preachers threatened me with hell, not realizing i am built of the very FIRE they use to scare weak men into pews.Black-and-white photograph of a gold mirror reflecting Nikyla, her phone held over her face, the pink chair beside her.the whole womanWho is she?Written in red on a hallway wall: My skin is a very poor cage. The tigers inside are starved. If i do not write tonight i will be eaten from the inside out.
Written above the toilet: 4:12 am. The nervous system is a prison warden. The bone structure is a cage. And the horizon is teasing me.
Written on the wall: The rock at the bottom of the hill has a coat of green. Sisyphus sits beside it now, the quietest king i have ever seen. They have agreed in whispered tones that winning is obscene.
Written behind a round shelf: The clock on the wall ticks like a countdown, but nobody told me what explodes when it hits zero. Me, probably. Again.
Blue marker on a window sash: There is a strange salt-soaked god living beneath my 3rd rib. She doesn't care about my morals or my grocery list, she only asks if i'm hungry.
Purple marker on a bathroom wall: i scraped the skin from my knuckles trying to knock on a door that was painted onto brick. the entrance was myth. but the scar is a beautiful trick.
Written on the bathroom panel: For a clean soul please dial 1-800-GOD. For a clean break from reality just look into the mirror under this fluorescent lighting.
Written under a window: i am a lover girl born in the belly of the underworld. i will pull the stars down by their hair and sew them into my skin.
Written on a hallway wall: I AM SO FUCKING TIRED OF TRANSLATING AN INFINITE SOUL into the clumsy, linear currency of hours and tasks and meat.
Written on the wall: i get to write with every kind of ink.

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