“I would write you into a story,” I said. “Bones picked apart and aligned into words and smiles and tears tearing pages – I would capture you.” And I would, if I could only find the beginning. Choose a beginning. Are there ever true beginnings or endings? There’s always a before, before, before. An after. Nothing ever comes first, not Adam not Eve and not in my (our) story either. Sometimes I liked to think that time worked like an accordian, pressing in and out and stars colliding and time folding and folding – then nothing would be linear. Linear was boring, anyway.

Was it only that summer it had started? Started in the thick hot air, in the humidity and bullfrogs and – well. It wasn’t the beginning. But it was a beginning. A beginning sharp and sudden, slicing through mundane years and gripping right down into the soil. Feet sliding downhill and spiralling, dirt and rocks between toes, to a place we never thought we’d land. Feet pausing and contemplating then burrowing down down down. Roots creeping and clutching at security – that was the way we were.

“I would write you into a story,” I said almost proudly. There should’ve been a but, a reason why I couldn’t or shouldn’t but there was none. Just the plain simple cotton I would write you. No excuses. That was the way I was.

Patience. “From the virtue.” An English name that burned itself into wooden planks and sailed across the ocean, taking root in the new world, discovering itself in Virginia, in the Carolinas. Virtue. Morals. Of those I had none. I spat and I wore what I wanted and I felt the earth and its passion in a way not regulated by the “virtue” of society. No Christian law or philanthropist obligations could tie me down. I lived how I wanted – so people called me Pat or nothing at all.

People called me Pat -- I called myself God. God because who was to say that new stars weren’t born every time I blinked? I didn’t acknowledge a higher being and I didn’t acknowledge time. The current is the past as soon as the words to define it pass between your lips so why stick yourself somewhere that will only dissolve the second you touch it? Might as well just live to live – I burned my only clock.

Without the clock I knew night only by its smell and day only by the chirping of birds, and before I could blink (and toss another star into the sky) it was summer. Most people don’t understand summer. Summer was made for losing your soul to the heat, to the music.

That summer the grass fell in on itself, melting in the gaze of the sun –

That summer.

I would write you into a story.










She stares out over the dew-riddled field, eyes grazing the gravel and penetrating the trees. Stares because some moments never become ‘were’s’, some moments cling to the is, to the are – and she because I was wholly not myself.

The field rippled in the wind as a cloud swept overhead, scattering the gently blinking eyes of sunlight. A cricket jumped somewhere and she tilts her head slightly to listen for the scraping of atennae against blades of grass. Tilts her head and listens – the force of the action blurring her vision and doubling the brightness of the sun. Precision is a thing of glass.

She listens and she shuts her eyes and lets the sun blanket them (the cloud had passed), rocking on her heels. She stands there and she does not move because she is waiting. She’s been waiting for – hell, for an eternity. With no clocks she could define eternity any way she wanted.

She lets her mind escape the is and the now and the why and go soaring, flying between words and silence. If only fantasy could overthrow reality, if only waterfalls could spill out of faucets and fish could blow intoxicating picture perfect bubbles, if only the world were perfect, if only perfection did not require imperfection, if only if only –

“hey.” It was an imperfect greeting, half swallowed as if not wanting to interrupt her reverie and not in the least bit capitalized. hey.

She said nothing, the stillness of that ‘hey’ rusting her eyes and lips shut.

“hey,” it came again. She found that opening her eyes lead to assumptions and judgements and so she kept them closed and instead pried open her lips, licking them lightly with her tongue, tasting for the right words – “hey.” (she couldn’t tell if the words were hers but they worked well enough).

“Do you know how to get to --”

“Shh.” She interrupted. Eyes closed. “Listen.” He stood there and he did so. It was rare to find someone willing to let themselves listen.

“I promise I’m not always like this it’s just --” she started to babble, then cut herself off. No excuses. They listened down until they were the grass and they could feel all the touches of the cricket, and that was when I knew I had found something more.

I decided just this summer I would become someone else. I would abandon the ‘me’ and let my spirit sink down into the soil and rip it out anew. I would lose myself in his “hey” and tear open my ribs so he could see it all. I hungered for passion to feed my soul more than food to feed my body.

“I want to know everything about you.” I said. It was not every day someone offered to take you – all of you – and carry some of your weight. Here I was having barely heard a sentence, eyelashes glued to eyelashes, a stranger and ready and willing to take on that task. Bravery.

There was a silence that made me want to run, feet slipping on pavement, but I could barely wiggle a toe. Toes sinking down between rocks and earth and down and down and down.

“Open your eyes.” He said. I did, but I did not look at him. We were gods and we were forever and we didn’t need a physical definition.

Down between the sand and rock and down.