weird intense day out of it justwrite

Sometimes I think the smoke is a part of you, and I remember how breathing something into your lungs is really breathing it into your bloodstream. When my dad took his chainsaw to the woods to cut the limbs off of trees, he never wore a mask. I imagine the bark growing on his veins, tiny roots holding his tongue against his teeth, wonder if that's why he didn't call. Kyra tells me her parents are still in love, and I know Grama is thinking about Grandpa now, and his wife, resting by his bed in the hospital, her hand on his because she's already rearranged the lilies three times and doesn't know what else to do with it. I used to wish I could play the piano so I could watch my fingers practicing, cutting through air like my feet slice Bay water, toes curled under, my eyes closed. Lately, my dreams are full of smoke, but I breathe anyway, my throat burning, my teeth embers, my tears soft. Too many fingernails have tasted my skin. I want to cut them all and plant the opaque crescent moons in the pot with my sweet pea, dig them up sixteen months later and read the cursive their roots have made, see if I can finally learn my name. I used to think I could find it in my arteries. I would stand naked at the mirror, arms stretched up like branches bent slightly in the middle, my skin pulled so tight it was transparent and I could see straight to my organs, see my pulse everywhere at once. All I learned is that there are more shades of blue than I can count, and all of them smokey, my veins curling up through my chest, grey-blue tendrils, my lungs expanding like two matching hot air balloons tethered to the Earth, my fingernails purple at the base, almost black when I'm cold, and my heart at the center of all of it, murmuring a name over and over, syllables collapsing into themselves, and exhale that I can't understand.