imaginary people that will never exist

by Joel Worford

Ludovica Dri

Words—around whom, I’ve built my entire identity—keep failing me. Or perhaps I’ve let them down. Who knows? Every single day is an opportunity for more words that will not come. More imaginary lives that will never breathe the imaginary air that will never blow. Entire generations of imaginary families erased from a history never created. I can only imagine what it must be like—to sit in Heaven’s waiting room while some Angel, the author of your life, pithers over whether the third word ought to be “whom” or “which.” Whom. Delete. Which. Delete. And years, maybe decades, go by, and you’re still waiting. You wish you could tell her, I don’t mind if it’s not perfect, I just want a chance to live. But the Angel disagrees. Once this is right, I can move on, she promises. But it will never be right. Because she is not right. Her hair lies in oceans on the floor—it collects as the words should—in fragments and fractions and however it may leave the head. How ironic, the sloppiness of trichotillomania. A perfectionist’s disease. Follicles flaunt the freedom our minds cannot find. We leave keratin trails in the wake of our failures. The angel grows tired, and wants to go to bed. Tomorrow, she promises, Will be better. And so, she means it. Until tomorrow becomes today.

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Joel Worford is a writer and musician from Richmond, Virginia. His work appears in High Shelf Press, Afro Literary Magazine, Agapanthus Collective, Patchwork Lit Mag and more. Joel is the 2018 recipient of Longwood University’s Outstanding Creative Writing Student Book Award. He received a Best of the Net nomination in 2019 for his short story “The Warning Sign,” as well as a Pushcart nomination in 2021. Joel’s band, Whitney & The Saying Goes, released their debut album, “Thoughts For Breakfast,” in March of 2021. Joel also serves as fiction editor at K’in Literary Journal. He enjoys music, literature, and tennis.