GHOST TOWNS
OLIVIA HU
Yesterday, I let a man inside of me because I was trying to understand
how it felt to be more than hollow. Midway, I hugged my body clean until
he was halfway out the door. When he called he told me I was
emotionless, silk shells and hollow bottles. I could string you up and
you wouldn’t say a word. I lay frozen hours after he hung up, the soft
static hum the only music that tinged my ears. I was empty not full,
a ghost town, except that ghost towns are beautiful; quiet, the sort of
eerie that lures reckless wanderers, and I was not. This was a robbery
that I could not report, the kind where you lose something more
than leather purses. In the corner I lay a pile of string,
the knots tighter than ever before.
how it felt to be more than hollow. Midway, I hugged my body clean until
he was halfway out the door. When he called he told me I was
emotionless, silk shells and hollow bottles. I could string you up and
you wouldn’t say a word. I lay frozen hours after he hung up, the soft
static hum the only music that tinged my ears. I was empty not full,
a ghost town, except that ghost towns are beautiful; quiet, the sort of
eerie that lures reckless wanderers, and I was not. This was a robbery
that I could not report, the kind where you lose something more
than leather purses. In the corner I lay a pile of string,
the knots tighter than ever before.
OLIVIA HU's work has been published eight times in literary magazines with many more forthcoming. She is also a national winner in prose as well as serving on editorial boards for many other literary magazines, including editor-in-chief of Venus Magazine at venusmag.weebly.com. When she isn’t writing, she is wandering the café-scented streets of downtown dreamy-eyed or finding solace in her safe haven, a bookstore.
