SHE LIES
By Brynnah McFarland
Drip Castles
Scoop soggy sand up with cupped hands and let it funnel through them slowly to shape the dripping sand. The crooked structures crumble in the sun, their architecture dissolves when dry.
Mint
My first memory is of this crystal Waterford candy dish. It was full of those soft round mints that crumble like chalk. I remember I had on black patent leather shoes and that everyone was ignoring me. I don’t think I actually broke the lid, but it slipped and the underside looked cracked. I learned recently that most crystal has seams. I buried the lid in a potted plant. I don’t think the plant was alive but the dirt was real. I spent the rest of my great grandmothers funeral terrified someone would find out. My Mom thought I was afraid of my dead great grandmother, I thought it was cool that she looked kind of like wax.
In Cold Light
The bed sheets are twisted and you sit alone with your back to the wall. The bed still smells like her in cold light, as if the shades were pulled back and the moon shone down on her pale skin, when she’d sleep naked with her eyes half open.
Letters
She’s the kind of girl you think you’ll write letters to on some vintage paper. You sit down and start, you write slowly and carefully, but it isn’t perfect and you haven’t any stamps so it gets folded into a drawer. In the end it’s a good thing you never finished them, you’re not what she’s looking for.
Wonder Full
Grandma sometimes looks at me like she isn’t sure who I am. I told mom and she got upset. But sometimes I look at her and think I don’t know who she is either. I didn’t tell my grandma I liked girls when I’m supposed to like boys, but neither did my mother. I often wonder if my grandma is a lesbian too.