Erin Jamieson

Erin Jamieson received an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University of Ohio. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in After the Pause, Into the Void, Flash Frontier, Mount Analogue, Blue River, The Airgonaut, Evansville Review, Canary, Former Cactus, and Foliate Oak Literary Magazine.

Languages I No Longer Speak

Nights don’t scare me
It’s the mornings, with the bright sun
when I am most afraid

the hours where people live
their lives: go to work,
cook dinner, confess their love,
buy clothing from thrift stores,
mow their lawns, paint their nails red,
dream of a future, bury a loved one
go to the pet store or pray alone

Does this make them human?

In my room, at the store, at work
I do not feel.
I do not feel urgency,
do not feel a need for anything
Pain is nothing
I cannot remember it
Cannot remember when living
was more than a verb
when these things were natural
when dressing and showering
were not a feat in of itself

Architects

the house we built: two bedroom,
one story. no fences.
budget window panes

it was big enough then
colorless walls we swore we’d paint
sea green, or eyelet blue

do you remember the couch?
we found it at a thrift store
the fabric already snagging
wrinkled like elephant skin

it’ll last, all of this will

a memory:
we’re sitting on that couch,
your arms splayed over mine
as the neighbors move in
a child laughing, a puppy howling

isn’t that sound beautiful?
but you couldn’t hear it.