I'm tired of girls like me being told that
we should have swan feathers when we're
not even birds at all and since when was
it okay for you to hold my hands over the
fire? You know that they're sensitive just
like the rest of me, the rest of me that I
learned to hide after she died but she
never died. She's here, she's fire, she's
wild horses and tissue paper and house fires;
she is relentless. Relentless like the tides
of the ocean, the tides that sometimes even
pull the bloody-murder Sirens down into
the purples and blues and all of the hues that
remind me of bruises. It's nothing personal,
she told me as she turned to ash and I'm
sorry, she said as she sat on my shelf for
what I only recently realized was years.
Not reclaimable days, only nightmares,
only nightmares now. Close your eyes and
sleep until you see her again; you will.