November 21, 2025 — “Room for One More” by Lauren Anders
I’ve never had to unlearn a face,
to memorize a new one.
To follow the line that moves along the nose
and over the eye,
whether or not it traces the eyebrow
or dips
right below.
It took me eight hours,
or eight minutes. It took me no time at all
to look at yours and want to keep it.
I watched you move,
but mostly I watched the way you stood still,
leaning forward slightly with hollow eyes
as if you were thinking deeply, or maybe not at all.
Lauren Anders is an Oklahoma native writer and visual artist. She attended the New York Academy of Art, where she received her MFA in 2018, and has since lived and worked in Brooklyn, New York. Lauren previously had work published in Soft Quarterly and VelvetPark Media, and recently completed a writing residency at the Trélex Residency in Switzerland.