for lost daughters.
both of us were tall the year the earth stood still.
before then i’d spent summers and winters and falls with you. there were days with long ponytails and arms that stretched and reached towards late afternoon sun. there were evenings spent running down hotel corridors and vanilla ice cream that melted all over our hands.
sometimes we laid in the grass and you told me bees could kill you, literally, when your gold red cross bracelet glinted in the slow sun. our legs and hearts were bare then. our thoughts innocent, our minds free.
nobody ever tells you that the voice is the first thing to go.
did you ever see that I cut my hair?
it was when your heart bruised that i tried to force myself to feel. i ran my hands along the places that you left me. i tired out your memories. there was a place the earth took me where i hated him, and i’ll never really know what i feel because it’s a place i can’t go anymore.
but at one point i had you, before that summer’s end.
