Every little bedroom

in Europe is the one I slept in

when I was seventeen & thought

I couldn’t possibly feel any

more. The open windows

& yellow comforter

(or whatever it is, now, doesn’t

matter) prove me wrong, over

& over, just like us. Even

the emergency sirens soothe,

say: you’re somewhere

else, now. The air cooler,

lighter. The stories just as awful

& just the same, in the end

but at least they sound different! Funny,

how that makes them more

bearable, somehow, somehow

makes them more true.

Hannah Phillips Mollenkamp (she/her/hers) is a queer poet, theologian, and storyteller originally from Austin, Texas and currently residing in Chicagoland. Her work has appeared in Pleiades, Voices de la Luna, and Up the Staircase Quarterly.