Lost

Margaret Marcum

The calendar insists it’s still March,

and I reach to turn the month—

but my hand begins to disappear.

I stumble into myself, the walls pulsing blue,

each face feigning a glimpse of God,

each stranger, suddenly beautiful.

I don't know why I’m still watching 

the hand crawl toward another hour,

waiting for the power to return.

I stop breathing.

Snow fell in the night like a secret—

silent, immaculate.


I tried to find words to make them believe 

where I’ve been, what I could tell them

so they’ll let me come home.

Each night I dream of people,

I’ll never see again.

I feel only the edges of my hurt.


I’ve learned to cry where no one sees,

to find myself in the dark pupils of night,

that wet labyrinth of pleasure.

Where I follow voices that echo

perfectly like mine—still I’m that girl

everyone says is lost.

Margaret Marcum is currently a doctoral student in the English Department at Southern Methodist University. She is a graduate of the MFA program at Florida Atlantic University. Her literary works have appeared in NonBinary Review, Scapegoat Review, October Hill Magazine, Abbey Review, and Children, Churches, and Daddies, among others.