What the River Divides

You always find me on the shortest day of the year. I’m almost always wearing a dress made from rose petals and dust. My skin is fragile now and if you touch me I’ll break

down into ash or sand or something else as inconsequential and as important. Remember the time we stayed inside for three days in a row because we didn’t want to stop touching? And remember the time I gave you cups of hot lemon-honey to drink because you were sick? And I got sick too and we stayed under one blanket, our fevers burning into each other.

I used to roll down hills when I was a child, wrap my arms around myself and tumble. I liked to give into the falling. I always closed my eyes, though, because I was afraid to see the way the world spun around me. The sky the ground the sky.

I liked the taste of your skin on my tongue, my lips. I liked the sound of your voice in the morning, always slightly deeper and

I liked the way you said my name. Now you just say it and it seems like you’re trying hard not to say it. Do you hate the way it’s becoming common? You might, over a lifetime, meet at least a dozen people who share my name. The trouble with common names is that someone is always calling out for you somewhere.

If I could tell you how it was does it make it easier? I saw the world around me blink in and out like those Christmas lights set to patterns. The colors were brilliant. I thought I saw a city devoured by a lake. I tasted salt and ash and dirt and the sea and the stars and and and and and and and———————–

———–it sounded like trains going backwards and waves not crashing.

You will always find me on the shortest day of the year. I will wear a dress made of rose petals and dust so that you will know me even from years away. I promise. Just touch me and I will break

break br

eak bre

ak brea

k

into you.