may 18, 2025
twenty-three
it is late spring; i am running as fast as i can; i am in a field, the grass is tall, the grass is seeding, the seedheads beat against my legs, the seedheads are like heartbeats on my legs, my heart beats quickly, i feel my pulse everywhere; there is music in my body, my feet keep rhythm, my feet are a heartbeat, my legs are a heartbeat, the grass is a heartbeat, i keep running; in the distance i see a clearing; my hair is big and frizzy and falling out of a bun, my hair is wet with sweat, my hair is wet with the air, i am so sweaty; i reach the clearing, my feet slow, my heart slows; i am in a small patch of dirt, i fall to my knees, i fall to my left side; the dirt sticks to my skin, my knees are dirty, my hips are dirty, my arms are dirty, my cheeks are dirty, my hair is dirty; i am giggling, i am laughing so hard it hurts; i clutch my belly with my dirty hands, they leave marks on my clean dress, my dress is dirty, my clean cotton dress is dirty; i keep laughing, i’m gasping for air, i breathe dirt into my mouth; i stop to taste it, it is sweet and gritty; i rub my tongue against my teeth, i sit up, i wipe my mouth with my dress; i wonder what the dirt tastes like underneath, i sink my hands into the earth and start digging, the soil is soft and cool, loamy, i dig down underneath it; the soil turns red, i press my palm against it, i press my palm to my heart, my dirty clean cotton dress turns red; i realize i am bleeding somewhere, i touch a finger to the blood, i wipe it against my thigh, then again i clutch my belly; this time there i feel a small child; no, in my lap there is a small child whose hair is big and frizzy, i mark their forehead with red; no, i am a small child and my hair is big and frizzy, and my head is in my mother’s lap; no, i am grown and my head is in my mother’s lap, and my hair is big and frizzy; but no, my head is too big and frizzy to fit in my mother’s lap, and my dress is made for the dirt; i stand and walk towards the westward window where i can see that
somewhere in the distance the setting sun reaches through tall grass to warm a small patch of dirt, where there is a child laying, laughing, and my hair is big and frizzy and wet with the air, and my dress is red and dirty; i watch a dragonfly land on a small brown stick, the stick is my left big toe, i watch the dragonfly on my left big toe; a wind rushes through the grass, through my dress, a wind pulls the dragonfly but still it holds fast to me, until it lets go, flying east with the wind, towards the ocean; it zig zags through the air, flying up and down and everywhere else; like a seed i jump up to catch the wind, and there i go with the dragonfly, running east and west and north and south, zig zagging through the grass, feet beating against the dirt, seedheads beating against my legs, heart beating, running as fast as i can, through where it used to be a river, or an ocean, running over what one day will be a mountain, through fields of all the grasses in the world, carrying fistfuls of seeds and flowers, heart beating into my feet into the earth, running as fast as i can, all the way to anywhere.