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I ask my friend to sleep call
with me via sonnet

Zoe Reay-Ellers

For J


because the dark is a desert—heater cranked

and blankets scalloped: false ocean that I may part


because I become Moses at midnight, hunched

before holy texts penned in l33tspeak and light mode


because prophets are birthed by necessity

and not choice: body refusing to become an iceberg


because I am the titanic’s orchestra, fingers shaking

against taut strings, playing Adams instead of praying


because names hold power—God, Voldemort,

Insomnia—and a weary teenage girl is not worthy


because I become a seagull that lets itself ricochet

between waves until it drowns each time that I dream


and because you are a wired crab trap that refuses

to move: just breathes and breathes and breathes.

About the Author

Zoe Reay-Ellers is a seventeen year old writer from Washington State. She edits for a host of literary magazines, and her work has appeared in a number of different places, including Blue Marble Review and Eunoia Review.

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