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.