Buried BY REGAN PUCKETT in Moonpark Review

The sky is bleeding stars tonight, white pinpricks ripping through the blackened curtain, so many
speckled across the surface that the sheet might disintegrate entirely, and light will coat the world
— no, light will burn the world, to a tiny, shriveled crisp, and then, there won’t be any big cities
or faraway forests or other places to dream of disappearing in, there will just be soot and ash and
buried things, like the trinkets you hid in the yard as a child, things you swore you’d come back
to, but forgot you buried at all, and now, they’re stuck, plastic barbies and playing cards
compacted beneath decades of dirt, and you are curled beneath a blanket on a bed that isn’t yours,
listening to the half-hearted hum of an air conditioning unit, huddling close to a sleeping body
that feels warm, but not warm enough, and there’s an infomercial droning on the television,
flashing blue and white across the walls, across your face, but you’re not watching, because
you’re staring at the precarious sky between dusty wooden blinds, you’re staring at the thousand
stars piercing through its blackened surface, at the looming white moon, an ivory circle growing
wide enough to swallow you whole, staring with breath suspended as you wait for the curtain to
fall.