Everybody got home around six. I step outside and feel the pavement under my skin -the cratered sidewalk cupping the bottoms of my feet. My dads car door opens and I hear his laughter. Throws his head back and shakes his head. My mom smiling through the kitchen window- waving like they’re sixteen again.

Jess is standing on the edge of the flowerbed picking daisy’s. I ask her which one are her favorite and she said she lost count.

Later that night we take a bottle and lay in the driveway. Girlhood keeping our veins nourished – our bodies whole. Numbing moonlight. Empty side streets. Our whispers filled the air as if anyone was around to hear us. Talk about our worst fears and I tell you that the stars will look the same for ever and ever. Emptying ash trays in our neighbors trash can. Turning the tea lights off in the backyard before we go to bed. You spill water all over the table and we laugh as the puddles fall around our feet.

Watched the ground start to separate and the universe showed its teeth. We sharpened ours and carried pitchforks, but it knows how to make an ending feel like finality. The concrete began to turn into a headstone. Left the house like a ghost and it still haunts me:

The moss growing on the patio in the backyard crawls up my neck and chokes me. The chipped tile in the kitchen splits my fingertips. The draft in my bedroom suffocates me. The rusting faucet burns my throat. The tree in the backyard grows up my spine and I’ve been hunched over ever since- forced me to kneel like a sinner and I still say a prayer every time.

It’s etched in me like a sad goodbye.

I call the days as my own, but no one is here to listen. I’m separated from it all by a graveyard and five towns over. I knock on the door in my dreams and no one’s watching. No one’s answering. No one’s home. AMT