outside blowing bubbles justwrite

Bare mountain is the one you can't see. I tell Lindsey this while the wind takes her bubbles and brings them to me. My palms are open, facing the sun, thinking about how light can pass straight through wet hands. Mine are dripping soapy water on my thighs, drops that look like rain until you teach your eyes to focus, realize you're closer to everything than you imagined; the space between the trees is almost itself a tree. There is nothing separating us but skin that melts like frost on an April morning just as it meets the sun for the first time. These days, I think about fading, about watercolor landscapes where I can't find my footprints even if I squint, where the soil looks like sand looks like sky. I thought I saw your face once, but it was only a cloud. Lindsey looks up when there's shade, searching, and I think about her footsteps every time a faceless stranger in the hall walks by with keys that sound like bells that sound like winter is over. This is the season of fading. I wake up expecting rain but find sunlight shining through soap bubbles and wind that imagined it is colder than it was last month. This is the season where what is warmest rises first and all I feel is what swoops in to take its place. Lindsey thinks her ivy grew leaves before mine. Birds land in the vines and cough up notes that make me smile and then startle me four minutes later when my ears have moved on. A tiny bee lands on my knuckle. Its wings are transparent and look like empty space, look like wet air with light shining through. Every day lately is a new season, and all of them are fading.