nancy is our favorite place to party

Three floors up and two apartments over there are six girls chanting light as a feather stiff as a board, light as a feather stiff as a board, one of the girls yawns and says you mean flat as a board, these girls hang out every Friday night, stay up ‘til after midnight, you can smell the anticipation from here, and the Cheeto dust, and the root beer, red pop, diet coke, making jokes about coke dick, yes they stink like teen spirit, yes they reek like mom’s weed, and the seventh girl, Nancy, is the board, Nancy is our favorite, she’s literally begging for a party of demons to come inside, she holds her core tight, balances on the other girls’ fingers, the trick to it looking real is letting her fingers trail loose like her hair, and her hair hangs like a dark veil, she wears thick black eyeliner, oh black eyeliner, oh black lips, softly parted, enough to show some tongue, but not teeth, and when it’s time, oh it’s time it’s time, Nancy’s eyes roll back, yes they roll all the way back to show the whites, and we know, and the girls all know she’s at least halfway acting, but she makes them want to believe in her power as a doorway, in her convincing past life regressions, oh we love a conduit who puts in the effort, kids these days don’t like to put in effort, but when Nancy’s at the sleepover, the Ouija planchet swings letter to letter smooth as hips, a-d-e-m-o-n-i-s-h-e-r-e, a-d-e-m-o-n-i-s-h-e-r-e, baby your demon is here alright, right in the mirror, chanting Mary’s bloody name three times, fuck she’ll say it a hundred times, she’s not afraid to sway near boneless in the candle light, she lets the frenzy catch her in the hallway, now you see her teeth, now her spine is a rule her body wants to break, her neck is a wrong angle, her velvet choker is choking her, and then we join the party, we give chase, shouting at Nancy in her own voice yes baby your demon is here, we chase her down the hallway, and Nancy chases the girls down the hallway, and jesuschristohmygodholyfuck, she’s really possessed, but listen the girls say that every time, they can’t tell the difference, they’re so grateful when a parent comes in, relieved to see the flickering hallway light, to hear girls you’re being too loud, girls who was burning candles in here, but this time no one’s dad has had enough of the fucking screaming girls, the door just rattles hard and bangs around inside the frame, and from inside her bones, we shake our Nancy like a rattle, shakeshakeshake, señorita, take her skittering up the walls, black painted nails scritching across the ceiling, until the sun slices through a gap in the curtain, and the other girls are huddled together awake, until Nancy has passed out in her sleeping bag, and we pour out of her nostrils, ears, mouth, and slink back through the floor, again through the floor, down the hallway, through our door, and we miss her already, but there’s always next week, the other girls are yawning and saying that was so fun omg, see you next weekend bitches.

Ani King (they/them) is a queer, gender non-compliant writer, artist, and activist from Michigan. Their first flash collection, Family Night, is forthcoming with Mason Jar Press in 2026. Ani can be found at aniking.net.