homeland burning

lancaster summer

hey, if you're reading this, try listening to "sinking friendships" by jonsi in the background!! jonsi is v cool and one of my favorites to listen to when i write

2007

it was the first time i had ever seen a firefly up close, i think

they have eyes like black diamonds, and tiny feet

silver feathery wings

my only wish in life was to be close with winged creatures, my only hope of believing

there was an escape in the sky

i remembered sam

placing on one my palm and i was stuck between horror and fascination

the state of mind where the best ideas happen

the grass was full of them, ripe, like berries for the picking

i tried to memorize how sam looked in the faint golden glow of the bugs, different parts of his face illuminated

the bridge of his nose, the side of his left molar

how his eyelid looked smudged with vaseline

the dry gray skin on his elbow, and how even it looked like magic in the firefly light 

i tried to memorize the color of the night sky

how it wasn't really black but it wasn't really blue, sort of a bruise color

but too pretty to be called a bruise, so i decided that it was

indigo, a color nobody really cared enough to imagine out loud

i remembered marissa screaming as one landed on her collarbone

like little sparks

we kept them in a jar for a while, to light up the kitchen

someone sang about country roads, mountains, and lovers left behind

the sky was indigo

the air smelled like rain

don't worry

it was the good kind of rain

2017

there is a single firefly resting in the grass 

but the sky is not indigo

it is definitely bruise colored, and not pretty enough to be given a unique name

i am too tired to go outside

someone has embroidered meaningless textbook pages over the fabric of my skin

my joints cannot move for some reason

it isn't arthritis

it's just guilt that i've forgotten what it feels like to be a child

the sky is not indigo

the air smelled like rain

don't worry

i wasn't outside to feel it anyway