Lisa justwrite 1

You tell me that pine trees have needles. My skin is paper, light shining through and seeming brighter on the other side. I used to believe the sky at night was cloth with holes chewed by moths, their wings clogging the air like ash so I'm afraid I'll breathe them in, a million tiny feathers on my tongue, my throat like chalk, my lungs aching. Yours do too. I can tell by the lines around your eyes, your laughter eroding like the banks of the Monocacy. I'd follow it to the Bay if I could, sink knee-deep in the marshes and feel the Earth exhale into my pores, come out smelling like sulfur and looking like a blue heron, my neck stretched so high I look like I'm flying when I'm still on the ground. Fish will fear me but still be so mesmerized by my grey they call blue that they'll gather at my ankles, waiting to be plucked like daisies with parched stems and petals whiter than my mother's stretched belly, skin that has seen no sunlight but so many hands, grasping for heartbeats so deep they are drowning, but all they really need is hers. My father has fingers that feel like bark, the hair on his face like needles that can't pierce skin. He smells like firewood. There are moths gathering around his limbs.