III. The Mattress Call Center
It wasn’t even noon,
and the call center had already scraped me hollow.
I hated every single word I spoke,
offering mattresses wearing a plastic headset.
I dragged my heavy body to the furthest stall
and pressed my hot cheek to the beige freezing tile.
Ten minutes of dead sleep on the bathroom floor.
IV. Porcelain Fortress
The world outside was a rising tide of adult noise.
I retreated to my white ceramic fortress.
A tiny wooden stool on the cold linoleum.
Heavy paperbacks balanced on my knees.
Hours just vanished into the paper.
A locked door between me and the rest of the house.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Iryna Somkina is a Kyiv-based writer. She is Best Small Fiction nominee; her works appear in Gone Lawn, ANMLY, Heavy Feather Review and everywhere else. She explores ambivalence of intimacy in gritty reality.
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