Every Night, I Wake in the Witching Hour

By Kristin Entler

After "Large Blue Anthropometry [ANT 105]" by Yves Klein, 1960

Thin blue plumes of smoke float above the surface of the water; in my stomach, I feel a shame bubbling up from some deep panic blanched canvas-white, so I measure the wingspan of my emotions as if I don’t know I will end up overwhelmed, choking on feathers when all I see is dwindling lung capacity in fog waiting, an inhaler always on the edge of the bed.

Kristin Entler was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at 6 months old, and diabetes at 12, several years before coming out as LGBT+; her work has appeared in The Bitter Southerner, storySouth, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, and Hobart among others.

Art by Kristin Entler.