She’s in bed, slowing herself down to one breath per five Mississippi’s. Wants to make the room disappear/reappear/disappear behind her closed eyelids, so it looks just like dusk through a black silk scarf. She’s taming the werewolf in her chest, feeling for the leash inside her that is willing her to release it. She is leaving her body. The exit jolt, always the same and it never hurts any less. She’s cruising up and then out through the closed, white plastic-framed window, down past the cars parked on the curb. Her head is still heavy at first, so she feels drunk, tilted.

The light outside her body is thick and yellow, like Nanna’s ‘medicine’, and Nanna always drinks it down quickly, inhaling sharply, smacking her dry lips. Nanna always warned her about “Men travelling hands” when she was gulping it straight from the bottle. But the girl never listened. Nanna talks a lot of shit when she’s medicating.

The girl accelerates to the quickening place. It is a blue and black storm beneath her; a churning maelstrom of bruised cloud that she passes over, trying not to look down. Because who knew what was down there? The thought of it had scared even her red-nosed Grandmother, who’d pretended she’d fallen asleep when she had tried to explain some things to her. Every now and then, she saw it spit up in places, like foul-breathed old geezers. Just the smell of it made her tremble. Looking down could draw you in like a minnow to an anglerfish, speaking to the secret darks in you, like the edge of a 20th floor balcony speaks to you. She shudders and speeds up, searching now for the warm, amber horn of the crossing-place. It appears before her as she visualises it; orange-yellow and smelling like home.

The room beyond the threshold is exactly as she remembered it: the big, green chair with elbow dents in the arms, books on a side-table that never seemed to change position—she’d lifted the bottom one once to check and there was a dark rectangle in the smoked glass, like a ghost volume. The stereo in the corner is playing an Ella Fitzgerald song. She relaxes a little, swaying slightly to the familiar comfort of that voice, when he appears: “Hi, Pigeon.” He’s smiling, but his face is weird, too smooth, or something, she couldn’t put her finger on why. She doesn’t smile back. There is something shiny in his eyes that makes her feel faint and squeamish.  “What’s the matter? No kiss for Daddy today?” She’s stiffening with confusion as he moves and the music, that had been soft, yellow saxophone, becomes purple violin, and it grows and grows, like kelp, from the speaker. He’s in the big chair now, patting his knee, saying, “C’mere,” staring at her hard with his intense, twinkly eyes. And she’s thrumming like vibrato as she’s moving towards him, wound tight as a bow-string. And there’s a sound like creaking leather in her ears; the werewolf inside her is straining at its leash, thirsty and snapping. And she slows herself down, one breath per five Mississippi’s. She’s finally ready to be released.

Syreeta Muir (she/her) has writing in Sledgehammer Lit, A Thin Slice Of Anxiety, The Daily Drunk Mag, Ligeia Magazine, The Blood Pudding, Roi Faineant Press, Jake and others. Her art has been featured in Barren Magazine, Olney Magazine, The Viridian Door, Rejection Letters and Bullshit Lit.

She received Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations for her work in the Disappointed Housewife and Versification. Tweets as @phantomsspleen. Instagram as @hungryghostpoet. Bluesky’s as @phantomsspleen.bsky.social.