WereZombie

Designed by Coral Utnehmer.

Image Description: A grayscale illustration of a car rear-view mirror reflecting a ghastly face. The mirror has two dice dangling from it.

Some nights,
Particularly cold and quiet,
She transforms.

A lone softness in her eyes
Accompanied by the moon and stars,
She desires nothing more than a human.

Intelligence-
A conversation greater than the sound of her silence.
The potential of a mortal overwhelms her.

She drifts away in the car
Consumed by a wish-
To be talked to, not around,
To be acknowledged, not ignored.

Reflection melting into the window,
Her movement ceases
And cements her soul to the cracks in her whispers.

Breath inside her throat spins to the air outside,
Weaved, stretched, pulling her body into a mass of webs
Shy to an indiscriminate gawker.

Done waiting for proposals or requests
She no longer pines for such restrictions.

Even in the middle of her soliloquy,
The sky mocks her.

She’s so quiet.

The stars hum amongst themselves.

She doesn’t speak.

They laugh, she knows.

Her neck buckles towards the sunroof to form a vine-like structure.
Her stabbing gaze upward, insulting the false lights that refuse to shine for her.
Attempts to unfasten her mouth expose remains of her flesh, bound together.
How embarrassing.

After rearranging her face,
She tears her what’s left of her attention from despicable gossipers.
Dragging her head to the side of her disjointed shoulder
Eventually fixating on an oddity in her reflection.

A pair of ominous smudges appear on her brow
She squints
More eyes surface above her own.

A human peers back at her,
Not simply a ghost
with a porcelain vessel
But a human.

Warm, lively, expressive,
Capable of love and irony,
Just outside, smiling.

Everything she yearned,
To share the joy,
Her plans, her likes and dislikes,
Her favorite places to walk in daylight,
When she felt most like herself.

But not in the night,
For her body was not yet warm,
And her soul had not yet woken
From the slumber placed upon her,
On these cold, quiet nights.

Her left hand trembled forward,
Grasping the handle of the car door.
Her right wrist, holding tightly to her left.
To unlock, or not to unlock.

A misstep seeks to devour her fine-laced cocoon
But the potential on the street loved her.
It didn’t matter how or why they spawned,
Her dream, blocked only by glass, smiled.
Where’s the harm in hello?

Twisting her mouth skyward
To reciprocate the friendly expression from the stranger
Leaves her with a mangled, upside-down frown.

No matter,
When she opens the door, the air feels full again.
And her heart beats like it’s the first time.

With the sun rising,
She approaches them,
A voice brimming with anticipation,
For conversation.

Your voice.
The human sighs.

A bit like lavender,
With a hint of playfulness
Like bubbles brushing against dandelions,
And a bird’s chirp, not quite a song.
Fluff from a ripped teddy bear.

My voice?
She’d whisper to make it never known.

A disgraced melody which she fears.
Her passions, hobbies, and lies, what of those?
What of this ever beating heart?

Your voice.
Her throat swells.
My voice?
Yes.

With haste,
She binds cloth around her body,
To bury the monstrosity belonging to such a sound,
And retreats backward, sealing the door.

Frost shrouds the window
Concealing any testimony of life
And her heart quiets
Once more.