SARA WITH AN H
ISSUE THREE: December, 2019
SARA WITH AN H
When you order her a flat white, easy foam,
say to the barista, this is how you spell her name
–with an H to mean princess, daughter of a king.
All of her is raging to escape the empty field,
the yellow flickering headlights, cars zooming
down the open road.
She is a natural-born passenger
forced to drive at a slow & steady speed.
The intentions of the steering wheel scare her weak.
She cannot grip it properly, was never ready to flee
her family & join the world.
But she did. & the world did not rejoice.
It bellowed, found her in the dark where her father is,
a warm wind settling on her skin like dust.
She still recalls the sparklers in summer
that children carry in their hands to torch the night.
Cowering dogs as bombs explode. A star-spangled sky
bursting red, white, green, purple, blue. Fire blanketing the hills,
consuming houses disrupting the landscape.
That day, she wanted to leave the crowded, sinking, loveless city.
Once, a predator twice her size moved in
to claim his right to her body, to pierce eternity
as she knew it– a place where the dead live again.
As soon as she saw him, the obsidian eyes
of the beast he became for her, she vanished.
She is searching for a new name, less common,
tracing the twenty-six letters inked onto her back.
Cutting off her ears to know silence, to hear the voice
inside her mouth, to feel the eruption of her heart
heavy with blood, is the bravest thing she’s ever done.
SARAH MARQUEZ Sarah Marquez is an MA candidate at Southern New Hampshire University. She is based in Los Angeles and has work published and forthcoming in various magazines and journals, including Amethyst Review, Capsule Stories, Crêpe & Penn, Ink&Nebula, Peculiars Magazine and Royal Rose. When not writing, she can be found reading, sipping coffee, or tweeting @Sarahmarissa338