POEM 1

i am on my mattress stretching like a cat in the sun.
the door opens to my room and i walk in.
“have you learned to decipher your body objectively?” i ask.
then close the door behind me to trap the cool air inside the room.
“that’s not how it works,” i reply. “and you know that.”
i sit beside myself and press a hand to the small of my back.
wordlessly we say nothing to each other.

two minutes pass.

then at the same time we both say “there is nothing here.”
my apartment is empty some days.
we laugh at a joke that no one told.
“are you going to leave today?” i ask myself.
“things are worse here without you.”
i can’t look at myself sometimes.
i miss being able to sometimes.

i sigh.

“you know that i have to,
i don’t understand why you don’t leave.”
in bed, with sun on my mattress, i mumble
“you’re different now and i feel like i don’t know you.”
i shrug.
we both shrug.
i leave the room and never come back for myself.

i mouth “things will be okay” into the mirror.
hen later tell myself that i can’t read lips.
i exist in a vacuum.

POEM 2

on parking lots
on rotting leaves
on fuzzy socks
on leaving everything behind

it isn’t sunny

a small line of complacency
a crack in a sidewalk sideways
upside-down

right away

trees are always dying
we are always dying
under blankets
over covers.

autumn.

q: what is your editorial direction?
a: to build love,
to create love,
to exist.

Kyla Bills is an undergraduate at New York University. She cares a lot about the internet. You can probably find her there. Her debut collection of poetry, Everything Dies and I Guess That’s Okay was published in 2015 by Ghost City Press. She tweets @KylaBills.