Arabella by T.J. McGowan

The floor heaved and moaned
in creak and contortion,
a million whispers bundled together
from stained paper
and the holy smell
of stories told.

In a wind of no beginning,
I am lead to the emptiest corner
of the loneliest room,
to meet her – Arabella,
the ghost of turned pages,
burned by the world,
and bound to the burdens
of touchless fingers
and endless time.

All color from her skin,
washed with death.
All remaining light, 
roaming within her
for places not to die.

Eyes as delicate as cliff edges
over a blackened sea – steep beauty,
a song meant for rainy days.
Her tongue, unable to delight
from astral caves
behind buried bookshelves.
Eternity in muted walls,
with home, lost,
and out of reach,
her eyes said, “read to me”,
and so, I did,
with little worry
of escape. 

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T.J. McGowan is a Bronx based writer, who most recently got published in Flash Fiction Magazine, and soon-to-be published in 35MM Magazine as part of a collaborative project between photographers and poets. He has one full-length poetry collection, We Are Not One Thing, for sale on Amazon. He spends his days as an Associate Producer for a Film & TV company in NYC, contributing to script and copy on most of the productions they take on.