Dogs by Maggie Barnard

Little and brave, she falls off her bike. Bloody knees, scratched helmet. Scars heal and she’s a junior in high school at a house party, lying on a couch and thinking of a lie she can tell her mother in the morning. Sometimes she wanted to feel like a bad person. She walks down the aisle in her grandmother’s veil towards a man she loves in a way that feels predestined. He forgets their five year anniversary and she forgets the restaurant they went to on their third date. She buries one parent, then the other, two dogs, one hamster, and a raccoon from the side of the road. Her skin loosens at her jaw, elbows. She stands in front of the mirror in the hallway, waiting for her husband to get home, hands pressing at the skin of her neck, her face, pulling until the bones come back into sharp relief.

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Maggie Barnard is a literary writer and screenwriter currently living in London. She got her BA in Creative Writing from the Pratt Institute and her MA in Screenwriting from the London Film School. Her work has been previously published in Ubiquitous Literary Magazine and Mosaic Art and Literary Journal. She loves Waitress the Musical and once had a drinking game created in her honor. Find her on Twitter: @maggiebarnyard.

Photo: Inga Gezalian