Allie Olvera

Listen to Allie read her story

I set you on fire beneath the harvest moon, on the roof of the building where we once lived together. A nest we built twig by twig, hauling in treasures from the street corner. Two crows. Management wouldn’t fix the broken radiator but you made mai tais in November and called it Our Endless Summer. The bathroom mirror held love notes and you spoke softly to my plants.

All that’s left is paper and glue. Cracked hands shaping the knees that once bent before me; the lips that said vows. Papier-mâché rising as tall promises back when you still belonged to me. I pitched a ladder to scale up higher and you became a monster. The neighbors are swallowed by your shadow. Your head splices the sky.

Blended acrylics form your ACL scar, the one you had shade matched in a Sephora. “She’s a dusty rose!” you rejoiced in the aisle like your labor had ended and a child was delivered into your arms. The mass from your body addressed by name. No more sucking on ice chips. 

Wind stirs the blaze. Your form twitches and collapses, glowing paper drifting towards your new house with her. Burning fragments of what you meant to me extending out like arms, falling before they reach you.

Allie’s prompts were: at a tower block, an artist, a burn

Allie Olvera is an international trip guide most frequently found in an economy middle seat. Her writing has appeared in The Progressive and Intrepid Times. She lives in Oaxaca, Mexico. Follow her musings at allieolvera.substack.com

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