Places I don’t get to be

Model homes eat the light of brand new

neighborhoods; voiceless, tactless

transmission towers filled with praying

mantises and people. Lamps, full

of dead skin, stay turned on

as new catalog-home owners do.

Cardboard painted lovingly by people

filled with longing stands proudly,

prettily, scantily. Pageant queens

are still royalty in their every day,

runner-ups still starving to be seen.

Fresh paint waits patiently to dry,

fingers, however, do not; cable boxes

sit warm and green and ready for cats

to sleep. Bulbs burn out and get replaced

with cold spirals. Clouds roll in,

the power goes out. Model homes remain

untouched.

Sara Stevenson is a lover of ghosts, dogs and all things hidden. She is a second year student in the Writing for Children and Young Adults program at The New School and she hopes to write something great, someday.