The Homecoming by T.J. Butler

                       ​Jeff Ruane CC



The Homecoming

We got out and walked when your parent’s old car died
underneath the sodium lights that changed our skin
to wax museum.

The blood we tried to hide took
seaweed shapes and clung.

We left one blinking Valiant eye 
fading on our backs, kept walking 
and no cars passed us. 

Home, and we 
oozed up the stairs 
trailing weeds and twigs 
like leeches
into a half-lit thousand candle glare.
​
A weeping Hallmark army
littered the tables
stuck from the flowers
overran the room
and we found 
we had died in our absence. 

​

T.J. Butler lives on a sailboat with her husband and dog. She writes fiction and essays that are not all fun and games. Her work appears or is forthcoming in New Plains Review, Flash Fiction Online, Tahoma Literary Review, New South, Ghost City Review, Barren, Tiny House Magazine, and others. She has completed a collection of short stories, "A Flame on the Ocean." Find her at @aGalWithNoName and TJButlerAuthor.com. 

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