mineral lit mag
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    • Still Standing
  • Home
  • About/Submissions
  • Masthead
  • Featured Poets Series
    • 3 poems by Chris Prewitt
    • 3 poems by Taylor Byas
    • 3 Poems by David Hanlon
    • 3 poems by Bailey Grey
  • Issues
    • Issue 1
    • Issue 1.5: Hozier-inspired
    • Issue 2
    • Issue 3: Recovery
    • Issue 3.5: Lana Del Rey
    • Special Summer Solstice Prose Issue
    • Issue 4.1
    • Issue 4.2
    • Still Standing
Hotel Room in Las Vegas
 
My parents entered the gambling hall.
I curled my fingers around the bedpost as I watched them disappear.
They had left me in a dangerous place,
leaking sounds of traffic from the window.
I was alone in that room and starving. The little men on the television screen looked like candy.
To keep myself distracted I yanked out strands of hair
and stared at the chandeliered ceiling until I cried. When my mother returned
I was wary as an animal. When my father looked at me
I put my face in my hands. I was ten and felt cold all over.
I was ten and knew what I had come from.


Alison Cao is a creative writing student at Milton Academy. She has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. She currently lives in Irvine, California, where she is social distancing with the rest of her family.

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