Death was everywhere I went. I felt it and then as my birthday neared, I felt it press. I had a memory; a vision of me standing in the kitchen with my friend James. Me, covertly making a deal with God in my most deranged state. It was New Year’s 2016 going on 2017.

“I’ll live to 34.”

I pressed my hands to the cabinets and felt two hands press back.
James shook his head in disbelief.

“No, you’ll live longer.”
However, James also told me I needed an exorcism which didn’t help anything. I winked at the cabinet but as time went on, I sobered. It was like waking up as a giant tropical storm begins approaching. This whole time you were supposed to be planning evacuation and you just sat, entranced by the reflection and the centipede that appeared on your wall at times. The way I burned that altar three times.  I no longer enjoyed the feel of phantom legs running past me. There were two little dead girls in my house that pretended to be one. They held projectors and forecasted death like evening news reports. Sometimes I spent thirty minutes staring in the mirror trying to charm her into submission.

“You cannot leave the mirror, Catarina,” I would say. “But come closer.”
I could not get out fast enough.
“What is your name?”
We began like that.
“I could not get out fast enough.”


“the woman who walked out of walls