Burglary

“Providence-05” by Kimberly Flynn

I wondered if anyone else noticed,
saw anything they might have thought wrong:
rug-burnt hands where there should have been soft, 
small purple dots like jewelry,
or the way the black vinyl couch ate the whole 
of my body every time we sat down
to watch a movie in front of it. 
I stayed unstitched on purpose,
in hopes that someone would see 
something tired falling out of me 
and bring it out into the light to die.
I wondered if anyone ever noticed 
anything off, his roommates who were always 
there, or their girlfriends, who sometimes were,
but then I remember that one time 
their home was burglarized in the middle 
of the night, everyone asleep
in their rooms, all of their belongings taken, 
and none of them realized what happened
until they woke up the next morning
to find the house empty

About the author

Danielle (she/her) is an MFA alum and professor of disability rhetoric and creative writing at Chapman University. She has a fear of commitment in regard to novel writing and an affinity for wiener dogs. A finalist for the Diana Woods Memorial Prize in Creative Non-fiction and nominee for The Pushcart Prize in Creative Non-Fiction and Best of the Net 2022, her work has appeared in Lunch Ticket, Driftwood Press, The Florida Review, The New Orleans Review and others. @danielleshorr

About the artist

Kimberly Flynn (born in Cambridge, MA, 1985) Originally from the New England area, Kimberly relocated to mossy Savannah, Georgia five years ago and couldn't have asked for a more welcoming place to call home. As someone with over 15 years of art and business experience, she founded Starlight Art Consultancy which offers artists helpful tools that give their art business both heart and structure, and is also the author of Businify Your Art Life.  Kimberly will be starting her new photography project entitled Hints of Happiness which will explore mental health through portraiture. This project will take her to 5 different national and international artist residencies in 2023 with the expectation to exhibit this body of work in the future.