November 25, 2025
you wouldn’t know it by driving this little winding road but, we left secrets in the forest. it’s in the eagle feather that we found and the skipped stones and the campfire we threw bundled sage into. we came as one thing and left as something else, leaving pieces of ourselves scattered along the beach like snail shells and beach glass, old bones like driftwood made smooth by the ever changing water.
somewhere in the coffee black sheets white mornings we shared that stank like firewood and weed, punctuated by incessant laughter, we peeled off our skin and our masks and all the confines and trappings of a complicated world and ran wild amongst the thicket.
we laughed like coyotes, bold and unwavering into the darkness, like we would never die or know pain again. the prideful manner of our dwindling youth echoed back to us as giggles amongst the trees.
we left secrets in that forest, and came back with cedar in our hair, a broken tooth and candy wrappers in our pockets.
can you feel us there in that dark permanence of thorn and branches?
we were here, and we cried bitter tears under running water and drank watermelon iced tea to cover up the taste of blood inside our mouths but you can still see it between our teeth.
the snow comes and covers up the trails we ran, but the trees remember us.
i hear their murmur in my dreams.
we were alive there, you know, just for a while.
hospital vespers 