When the man who ended my life as I knew it
ended my life as I knew it,
the rain dislodged its weight in snow.
A landscape devoted to bringing itself back,
in a world devoted to burning it.
Still, what I remembered was a well:
stone, filled with red
the whole way down. Someone had brought
a moon to lower in. To quell the light.
The men would ask,
Do you know what this means
This is a heavy accusation to make
This, too, went in the well.
You should go to the hospital
they said. I didn’t ask
Why me and not him
The animals made their own shapes
and pulled them behind with string.
Why are you acting like this they said.
Because he fed me the lines
The well was where we put things
that would not be accepted elsewhere.
In it, I sent down my life
hoping someone would send it back.
Brian Laundrie Told the Police Gabby Petito Was Crazy
Meggie Royer (she/her) is a Midwestern writer and the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Persephone’s Daughters, a journal for abuse survivors. She has won numerous awards and has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize. Her work has been published in The Minnesota Review, The San Antonio Review, The Rumpus, and more. She thinks there is nothing better in this world than a finished poem. Her work can be found at https://meggieroyer.com.