along the highway in tennessee, a triplet of crucifix stare from a hilltop. their shadows drag the way a leopard drags a kill to scraggly treetops, or a leper drags a fingernail across open lesions. it is a suffocating presence, and in a sharp moment of acute relapse, The Lord’s Prayer crawls free of my vocal chords.


"Who—"
there's a
prickly space
underneath
the stairs where
walls go to
whisper
"—'s there?"


Jenna-Nichole Conrad may or may not bleed ink.