by Nathan DeBar

Trouble wore red boots in the Summer and always left her laces in the mud. She hummed forgotten songs taught to her by ghosts. She called me darling in the tone you use before letting go of wrinkled relatives’ hands in the hospital – sad, but certain. Her laugh was invasive, like broken glass falling from a sunroof; it made me smile as it sliced me open. We would drink rainwater from cracked teacups on her shed’s rooftop, watching satellites blink. I learned how to steal hours from Night, how to set Boredom ablaze. Trouble never knocked – she climbed through windowpanes, barefoot and dripping, dragging stories behind her in a split-open suitcase. She told the truth as arsonists do – bright, hot, and leading right to ruin. I tried to hold her in to be my secret, but Trouble was already writing her name in lipstick on other mirrors and others’ skin. I still wake up smelling smoke.

Nathan DeBar is a poet and short horror fiction writer from Leakesville, Mississippi, who splits time between there and Athens, Georgia. His work has been or will be featured in anthologies, such as dadakuku, Georgia Bards Poetry Anthology 2025, and Happily Never After. His work has also appeared in print magazines, including Phylum Press and Persephone Literary Magazine, as well as digital magazines Floating Acorn Review and The Solitude Diaries, among others.