“To write is also not to speak. It is to keep silent. It is to howl noiselessly. ”
She points the gun in the air and shoots. “I know you’re out there,” she shouts. Her cigarette is propped hard between folded lips, smoke and gunsmoke puffing up over her head, and she pulls the trigger again.
Last night the new moon broke open across my shoulders. / Then dawn came through the trees / in pinpoints of varying sizes / like starlight glowing among the leaves.
I look around, bewildered. It’s not her sweat I smelled, but the leaves of a sage plant, their oil evaporated on the stirring wind. I bend down to take a bigger gulp of their salty, bitter scent, to clear my mind of the memory, to keep it safe in the past.
Well before I understood why girls were supposed to be beautiful, I yearned for beauty. I would lie on the couch, chewing my fingernails down to the skin, and hope that someday I would grow up to be pretty.