BY VICTORIA BUITRON
a found poem based on a question asked on Twitter
Check every room before bed something heavy against the door top floor only car keys dogs creaky doors baseball bat car alarm boat air horn muscle relaxers overinflated ego phone ready long metal flashlight me encomiendo a Dios no ground floor extra locks on door I pretend the world is a nice place charged phone leave a light on check the closets check the windows check the door locks a hammer under my bed knowing I’ll win a fight never the first floor door wedges scissors big dogs melatonin loaded gun near my bed alarms dog on my bed ambien lying on my bed getting ready ready? get ready ready to rest
Victoria Buitron is an award-winning writer who hails from Ecuador and resides in Connecticut. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Normal School, SmokeLong en Español, Southwest Review, The Acentos Review, and other literary magazines. A VONA fellow, her work has been selected for 2022’s Best Small Fictions and Wigleaf’s Top 50. Her debut memoir-in-essays, A Body Across Two Hemispheres, is the 2021 Fairfield Book Prize winner and available wherever books are sold. You can find her as @vic_toriawrites.