Rapunzel Reflects

Rapunzel Reflects

by Aleph Altman-Mills

The food I eat never fills me, only graffitis the walls of my organs. Saturn seems closer than the one bare lightbulb. You say, There is a nice view up here. You say, There are wolves down there. I say, I am a wolf if anyone is. Always hungry. I twist a rope out of my bedclothes and keep deciding not to hang myself.

I am the way out. I am the only one I cannot save.

* * *

Aleph Altman-Mills is an autistic writer who collects acorns and likes to buy books other people have already written on. She has been published in The Legendary, Words Dance, and Germ Magazine. She blogs and posts poetry snippets at really-fucking-confused.tumblr.com.

What inspires you to write and keep writing?

Writing is survival. Writing is what keeps me here and keeps me me. So the first thing that inspires me to write is that not writing isn't really an option.

Other things that keep me writing: seeing other people's writing and thinking "I wish I could write like that" or "I could do better than that" or "I have to try writing something like that", feeling beautiful or terrible or both, seeing stories that consistently go untold.