true story justwrite

I am missing my flight on purpose. I'm getting off three weeks before I got on. I have bootstraps to pull and a knapsack full of hard tack. I had a dream I've been dreaming someplace new instead of leaving this town where the streets drown in autumn leaves every springtime when it's time to begin again and I think maybe a seed will sprout another day, things my brother tells me weighing down my tongue, my voice broken like ice skates the hour you need them most to conquer this lake, fish sleeping beneath your blades. When the light is off, I'm afraid to open my eyes. When I'm moss, I grown on the eastern side of tree trunks because if you go east you'll find more of me, two or three pieces I left floating in the tides for you to find and then bury like a small handful of lost teeth, the kind we take off when we're young so we can forget how frail they are, my fingers unfurling banners that all say your name in capital letters because of emphasis because tone is important. It's all dogs understand, you know, except when the cat chases a moth under the door and it escapes through the crack but still flies as if it's frantic and the dog looks at me as if to ask if my wing is broken too. When I cry, you tell me the cat was only playing, that no one told her the rules or how fragile a moth can be, with legs like thread and thin paper wings fluttering in the darkness. It lands by my foot, choking on my tears, a flight ended, a seed planted, two lives joined plus the cat's, the dog's, and yours.