Lizzy Burnam 🐞

She is feverish, locked inside the house. 
It’s been frigid the past few days, 
temps in the single-digits, 
alarms sounding off all over town 
from burst pipes and buildings set on fire
by people just trying to stay warm. 
She reads about it on the Bellingham Herald’s 
Instagram profile and sucks
on an expired benzocaine lozenge 
she dug out from under the bathroom sink. 
Satan can’t create, she thinks. 
Me and him twisted up inside my body
like a winter storm on the weather map. 
Her paint brushes are stiff and scattered
across the floor, but her thumbs 
are busy scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. 
Stacks of books with broken spines 
are piled up around her, bookmarks
poking out the pages like daggers 
through the heart of each abandoned story. 
But limbo doesn't last forever, 
she tells herself. Soon the fever will break 
and she'll be free again to face the cold.