She wants the hell around her to be my hell: bottles and overflowing ashtrays, and more filth than my childhood. I'd love to smell something cooking, butter melting, to eat until I was full, feel full. I'd like to talk. Who knows which woman will be waiting there. Her vicious humming sings to me from the kitchen, drunken music with no melody or line. Smoke suffocates me, strangely sweet. She drains everything from me. I take on my role, and she hers, until the time has come for some grand display of broken glass. Each day it gets harder to look at that face: painted lips pursed in anger; lines circling her sunken eyes, her jaw, indistinct. They are my features.

Morgan Grunerud is a fourth-year voice student.

Students interested in submitting works for this column should contact Ron Price in the Liberal Arts Department at etc. 368, or by e-mail (ronprice@juilliard.edu)