The Lying Game
By Marisca Pichette

We all believed
that they were one.
We took one claw in every
paw and swore
we’d made a whole.
Seams slanted,
cracks deep—the riven gullies
between selves.
But standing there, under
stitched-apart skin,
what was before so clearly
a horde
appeared a motley whole.
The base was flawed beneath them,
yet they stretched out over top—
plugging uneven, cut-back cracks
with blousy, wrinkled want.
They came together to our world
and played their hungry game;
filling emptiness with breath
and disregarding—as they went—
the crumbling of their mask.
So careful in their illusion
we never noticed:
Chips of figure, falling to.
The lying dust was piled up
and soon bared us teeth
slavering just what it was
that slipped beneath the sheets—
professed it was a single thing
when it was them
and there was more between
than ever touched
and seen.


Marisca Pichette assembles unnatural creatures in the darkness. More of her work appears in Strange Horizons, Fireside Magazine, Coffin Bell, Vastarien, and Plenitude Magazine, among others. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.