by Anthony Santulli

After Apples to Apples, the four of us raise our stooped bodies off the couch and crawl up the stairs on all fours for pizza. My throat feels like a hairball. Flu season. I chafe the rough carpet on Swiss cheese socks as we stumble like we’re drunk on something strong. You have a plastic cat door, but you don’t have a cat? I’m sorry, I don’t know if you’re still grieving. You also kept the crayon drawing on the fridge from when you were 8. A long, black and white thing with claws and thick whiskers. What is it you’re holding on to? Is it the ninefold freedom of springtime shedding and arched backs, of sandpaper tongues and their baths?

Anthony Santulli is a New Jersey born writer currently attending Susquehanna University. His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in over a dozen magazines including Extract(s), The Review Review, bioStories, the delinquent, Bartleby Snopes, Literary Orphans, and decomP.