Pavor Nocturnus By Kathryn Michael McMahon

I sit on chests night-dark or moon-pale. If they are gray, they are already rotting. I sit on their chests and I squeeze them awake with my hips.

Sometimes I stick my fingers inside their brains, bend things, bite.

They hate me, but I am here to save them. He is coming to eat, but he doesn’t take nibbles like I do.

Sometimes they cry when they fall asleep, praying for my sister with soft hands and no teeth. Sometimes their bodies change, fit into mine. Sometimes they open their eyes and stare, wild-up. They cannot move.

The children, I only whisper into.

I paste my face against their eyelids until they scream.

He is coming, but my wings beat faster than his bulky ones.

© 2015 Kathryn Michael McMahon

Kathryn Michael McMahon writes a variety of literary and speculative fiction. Her writing has appeared in The Subtopian and is forthcoming from A cappella Zoo’s queer issue this autumn. She is an American raised abroad and has found a home in Vietnam with her British wife. She has a phobia of stuffed animals, which being a preschool teacher has failed to cure.

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