Meet Kate McGourty.

Kate McGourty is a poet living in Lancaster City, PA. She draws inspiration from all facets of life: love, family, sexuality, and occasionally nature.

She gets paid to work in a library and she returns always to language to make her way in the world.

***Disclaimer: All rights are the authors with the permission given to share for this special blog themed feature.

The Feature.

“Little Talks”

A flash fiction piece  based on the song by Of Monsters and Men. This is my imagining of what their child would perceive. 

She’s so pretty on the days when the voices speak. Her face is soft, listening. She laughs at them and I laugh, too, even though I can’t hear what they are saying. He doesn’t laugh. He is worried. He says, “Your mind is playing tricks on you, my Dear.” He says the truth is a thing that varies.

The stairs creak when she sleeps, it keeps her awake. She doesn’t like our house when she’s alone. He takes her hand and walks the hall with her. They are playing a game: the house is a ship, taking them safely to shore. She isn’t afraid, when he’s there.

She tells him that some days, she can’t even trust herself. “It’s killing me to see you this way,” he whispers. He never cries where she can see him.

They used to go outside, he tells me. He sighs. “We were full of life, then, full of love.”

He sings to me, but he is sad. He brushes my hair. He says she’s gone away, I can only see her when I sleep.

Some nights, I wish I heard the voices, too

I wonder if they sound like her?