muddled justwrite

On the edge of the riverbank I spend hours pressing my palms into the mud and wondering what color I was before I was born. I form the clay in my mind into faces to talk to when the grass is so dry it breaks beneath my feet and falls into the cracks in the Earth. I pretend my skin is see-through so my heart can watch itself beat. I'll stand in front of the mirror for a lifetime before it believes me, and trees will shatter in the wind so branches are piled in the streets tomorrow morning and leaves will wonder how they fell without letting go. I don't know the answer. My grandmother does. Her hands are waiting for me and I know they'll surprise me in sixty years when thread is trembling between my fingertips and my face is framed in silver and my lifelines are worn away. For now I count flower petals, wondering whether or not you love me and not knowing exactly who you are or really caring because I'm pressing flower petals between my fingertips and watching them become invisible. On the street, a stranger tells me I smell like roses even though there are daisies in my cheeks an irises in my eyes and a bouquet of wheat in my pocket, ready to be planted because darkness is something we crave as much as fresh bread, warm against our tongues like music made for dancing and hips that can't stop moving, and I have slips of paper in my jewelry box, slips of paper waiting for words while a letter waits on my nightstand with its stamp gathering dust because I'm always living on the edge of tomorrow, watching the mud dry and crack on my palms.

National justwrite

I used to be so small I had to reach up to open doors, and the shallow end of the swimming pool would swallow me if I wasn't wearing water wings, unclipped and unfurled, and I thought when I got more than two dollars in my piggy bank that I would buy a piece of land, just a modest piece big enough to unroll a sleeping bag and imagine a roof to keep the birds safe when they curl up with me at night. I knew I'd call it a Nation and write my own constitution three words long, or maybe five, or maybe three because "I love you. You're beautiful." is a little too complicated sometimes or maybe I would fill all the pages with words, or the whole parchment because every nation should be founded on parchment laid out on the grass, muddy fingerprints on the edges, a purple crayon tracing the same three words over and over until all the parchment in the world is full. And that would be my constitution. And my Nation would be a place where anyone could bring their sick teddy bears to get free bandaids and free lollipops, and even a free coloring book if they were about to start school where we'd take turns being teachers and the teddy bears would learn to tie shoes and learn to pick berries in bare feet without getting splinters and learn that naptime is really dreamtime, and we'd teach our bears sign language so they could talk to us when we couldn't listen and we'd try to stay up all night to count the stars before we'd realize they move sometimes and fade sometimes. I'd invite the leaders of other Nations for invisible tea, and we'd have a parents' weekend where everyone could pick their own parents or be parents or just be friends because who really needs parents in a Nation with my constitution. But we'd find them anyway and no one would need bumper stickers that say, "Did you hug your children today?" because no one wants a bumper sticker with such an obvious answer. And every night we'd lay out on our giant sleeping bag with our teddy bears and rag dolls and velvet-eared rabbits and plushie caterpillars and we'd read our constitution in low bedtime voices until the whole world fell asleep and dreamed about waterwings, unclipped and unfurled, and being beautiful and finding rocks shaped like hearts and sea glass with the sharp edges worn away and the sky full of stars echoing I love you I love you I love you.

really bad justwrite

Your lavender fields are resting on my eyelids while low muffled voices fade into my skin. The sun is growing every day and the moon is closer than I remember even though you keep telling me I'm just taller now. Years are fading into my dreams where friends I haven't met yet gather in giant rooms and your legs are all I see, becoming tree trunks as the bark strips away at my feet, and the tiniest fish swim through the holes in my net and into my cupped hands. I want to grow gills so I can live where it's quiet and even my thoughts come to me in ripples. Here it doesn't matter when I forget what to say because everyone is facing the corners of the room, whispering to themselves recipes for sesame pretzels and pancakes shaped like rainbows or candy canes or the cane in my grandmother's closet, the one she leaves in the grocery store and doesn't remember until her knee screams and the benches are all full and I watch her fingers trembling on the hand rail, fingers so light they are moths chasing the sun, parting the air in front of her lips while she waves away my concern. She keeps her bedroom door open at night and pushes the stool in the living room against the wall before she can fall asleep, and her Scrabble game has no "x" because she never knows what to do with it. The walls in my house are becoming shorter every day until the ceiling cracks open against the furniture and I'll be able to see the stars when I can't sleep, taste rain while I'm showering and know the world won't end before I can run to the window and watch.