Adele Evershed
How to Shape a Healing
once there was a girl / who was afraid of the night / because things disappeared in
the dark / the trees / the sky / the clouds / and the girl she was supposed to be
in bed she would trace the crown on her tooth / with her tongue / and the unwieldy
feel of it in her mouth / felt like a tombstone / or an apology that didn't quite fit
then one Friday night as she looked at her mother / in her head / she heard the
Beatles playing Lady Madonna / and suddenly she knew / she would need a suitcase
sitting in the bus station / her suitcase smooth and solid against her thigh / like the
PE teacher / who asked about her bruises / she saw stars reappear in the night sky
once there was a girl / who realized she never belonged in the life she was born in
to / so she left with the budding moon / and it was enough / to shape a healing
Bio
Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who now lives in America. Her prose and poetry have been widely published in journals and anthologies such as Every Day Fiction, Grey Sparrow Journal, Shot Glass Journal, Anti Heroin Chic, Gyroscope, and Janus Lit. Adele has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for poetry and short fiction and Best of the Net for poetry. Finishing Line Press published her first poetry chapbook, Turbulence in Small Places. Her second collection, The Brink of Silence is available from Bottlecap Press and her novella-in-flash, Wannabe, was published by Alien Buddha Press in May.