After sending out a week’s worth of mail,

the sculptor returned to writing poetry

and began feeling more connected to her

uncertain and hopeless future. Everything

being already over forever almost helped.

She skipped lunch for being so hungry to

put down whatever was coming next. Even

the clouds drifting the sky opposite her

ceiling could not disrupt her tabulation.

Instead, the mere thought of them turned

things darker: so that the songs began

devouring themselves as soon as they were

born. Then, they began eating other things

like her hands, her mind, and her precious,

precious heart. Why does a monster always

end up eating a heart? After her entire

body and house and memory were eaten, too,

the world kept turning, like lost letters.

Nathan Spoon is an autistic poet and author of The Importance of Being Feeble-Minded (Nine Mile Books, 2025). His poems and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, Poetry, Poetry Daily, The Southern Review, swamp pink, and elsewhere. Nathan is curator of the poetry and art snail mail club Behind Our Town.