Poetry by Maya Collins

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Hiding Place
​
A public restroom smells of cigarettes
And urine. Sit inside a cramped stall. Weep,
Take mirror selfies. Lean your back
Against cold concrete. Check your makeup.
Have a panic attack inside a public
Restroom stall. Call mom and have a smoke.
Fall to a floor, drunk in the bathroom.
Cold hard confines meet the soft warm flesh
Of your body. Hyper tap water against sweaty palms.
Strange strangers instead of cruel friends. Everything
Goes blurry; broken lights still flicker overhead.​





​Heaven Turned Moldy

From the day you are born you taste it.
It dances on the tip of your tongue.
A moment ago, I attempted suicide.
A moment ago, Dad sang and rocked me.

Call it hell or forgotten memory.
Every person you used to be—every person
Buried. Who hasn’t tasted flames? They
Lick you up like little things come easy.

—Poverty, loneliness, vacancy.
Nighttime faraway inside me.
Daddy is singing nursery rhymes.
Tone deaf and smiley, he’s rocking me.

Forever that didn’t have time to stay.
Heaven turned moldy. Breath,
Like hell, is catching. Little things
Come easy—hell comes easy.

Try and remember heaven. The singing;
The cradling. The way when I was a baby,
Something humble happened to me.
Warmth and kindness there.

If only I could remember. But
Breath, like heaven, is quick to leave.
Breath, like heaven, is a pilgrim.
I only taste forgetting. When Dad

Was young, he can’t remember me.
Fatherhood somewhere inside him.
I bet it felt like fire. I bet it licked him up
Like little things are heartbreaking.

Dad is cradling the body of a baby.
I’m told the child is still inside me.
Daddy rocks me close to his chest,
He holds a wooden picture book.

That was a spark, now I turn red.
Not singing. Not rocking.
Burning. Burning.
I am forgetting my future.

Thoughts of suicide cradle me.
I swallowed the child inside me.
I pray she is somewhere safe.
(I fear she is also burning.)

I didn’t know his voice would make
Me hungry. Hunger, fire, breathe.
“Not yet”, “until”, “for now”.
I’m sure you know what I mean.

If not, continue eating. Keep on,
Keep on returning. It’s all in
Your head, your body. Heritage is
Always happening. Heaven,

Like a pilgrim, was only visiting.
Daddy who holds me is gone.
Breath, like hell, is catching.
Thoughts of suicide rock me.
​




Maya Collins is a published author, passionate artist, and member of the Girls Write Now Collaboratory. Her work was featured in the Girls Write Now 2023 Anthology, the Blue Marble Review, the Women in the Arts Juried Exhibition, and is forthcoming in Tension Literary and The Girls Write Now 2024 Anthology. She currently lives in Pennsylvania, and plans to continue her undergrad at Wheaton College in the fall as a Studio Art and English Writing double major. More of her work can be viewed on her instagram, @poems_by_maya.