Locket
by Alexandra Wollinka
My heart is a locket missing its hinges,
Split halves, staring across a narrow hallway
Among old pictures that hang on the walls
Framed faces fading, forgetting to be missed.
I peer through the film of a dust-covered mirror,
Searching under the surface for structure,
Feeling wires in my jaw
And tired eyes shifting in their sockets.
Most days, I lie on a twin-size mattress
And listen to echoes of steady breathing
From air vents in my bedroom walls
The eternal sigh of tarnished metal.
When I dream, I peer from ceiling corners
And wake to hear myself whispering over a speaker,
A machine that whirs with the sound of gears
Getting stuck
And coming free again.
Asking when I’ll come home.
I am caught between two sides of a dime
In the broken lock of a doorknob
With the face of a stopped clock.
I am running out of time.
Split halves, staring across a narrow hallway
Among old pictures that hang on the walls
Framed faces fading, forgetting to be missed.
I peer through the film of a dust-covered mirror,
Searching under the surface for structure,
Feeling wires in my jaw
And tired eyes shifting in their sockets.
Most days, I lie on a twin-size mattress
And listen to echoes of steady breathing
From air vents in my bedroom walls
The eternal sigh of tarnished metal.
When I dream, I peer from ceiling corners
And wake to hear myself whispering over a speaker,
A machine that whirs with the sound of gears
Getting stuck
And coming free again.
Asking when I’ll come home.
I am caught between two sides of a dime
In the broken lock of a doorknob
With the face of a stopped clock.
I am running out of time.
Alexandra Wollinka is a student at Colorado College, where she is studying English. She writes short stories and poetry, and her work has been published in Prairie Margins.