What am I if I am not a girl? The pulpy body of a dead sea mollusk, dissolving? Am I crunchy? The shell it left behind, rotted in, shouldering deception? What if I am made from other shells, who were made from mother shells, who were stepped on so often that the gravity of their woman bones collapsed in, made dust of themselves beneath the boot of a man I have never met but can feel still in the tips of my hairs anytime someone asks me what I am?
Micaela Walley is a graduate from the University of South Alabama. Her work can be found in Oracle Fine Arts Review, Occulum, and ENTROPY. She currently lives in Hanover, Maryland with her best friend—Chunky, the cat.