by L.M. Browning, an except from Drive Through the Night

The patterns of the trauma align 

across the memories of our mind

—inescapable—a blackhole of being.

8,947 miles later, I know now why 

you refuse the say the names of those 

           dead-to-you-yet-still-breathing

—afraid as you are of the monsters 

                               are still under the bed—

yet in the silence, you give them immortality.

Your ghastly ghosts

—so cannibalistic in kind— 

ate me alive while the little girl in you 

daydreamed above the screams

of a life where

I was wrong

  and you were right.

Years later, 

I have become 

one of the names you can’t say

—I, the one who pulled back the sheets.

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