Crying so loudly for the first time in a long time- I’m just glad that the devil didn’t hear me.

Dancing in rain then sinking in mud. Sloppy summersaults in driveways that aren’t ours. Your moms favorite color is green. The side of the house never sees sun so we call it our cave. Cutting daisies at the throat to give someone something beautiful. This is what it took to knuckle through the world in honor of girlhood and the sake of summer ending. I wish it still fed me how it used to- in fact, it doesn’t do much of anything at all.

My hands are cramping from holding them up to pray. I close my eyes and I’m 26. Pressing my forehead against the marble floor of a church. Begging for the candlelight to swallow me- i’d live in the belly of that storm like a sinner. You’d cry loudly and I’d ignore it forever and ever and ever. I’m just like you, but maybe less holy. Rising like air. I don’t even graze the surface.

Maybe I’m just tired. That’s right- I’m tired again. I’m so tired. It’s just how I cope. Please don’t go searching in my absence. Don’t break your fingers trying to rip down my door. Don’t wake me in your hollows because I can’t fill that space how I used to. It’ll echo in those blank spaces that you promised to fill in, but never did.

Call me anything you want. Call me fun. Call me loving. Call me changed. Call me scorned. Call me a liar and I’ll promise to share at least one truth. I’ll let the words drip from my lips and you’ll mop it up every single time. Because you make a mess of me. You told me that finality is a verb. You made me cry loudly for the first time in a long time. AMT