Jutting lines of modern yuletide ball gowns

And suits of monetary armor wrapped around men.

Neurotically, we clamber to the top of the pyramid

Under the orders of our self-protecting Id.

Armed with whistling words and clinking champagne glasses we

Reach into the lives and down-coat pockets of our fellow guests

Yearning, yet never finding that sense of self-security we so desperately seek.

with his umbrella

i stand rain clouds and rainbows

from streetcar to car

splayed across warm sand

where the June sun laps salt waves

he kisses my cheek

fresh spring thunderstorms

pour through my dress, hem soaked blue

with his umbrella

By gaslight I sit by the lake // watching the dark web of the water glow // under the ghost of a crescent moon // a catfish floats slowly by with // gills and whiskers afire

The vape // of a cold winter dawn // jabs at my frozen face an // unlabeled reminder // to leave behind my youth // and step into the role that they // baptized for me long ago

I am biased // towards staying a child // just a little longer // until I figure out // how to start adulting // assuming the responsibilities // that are held to my head // their finger on the trigger

A million of you

Reflect in the mirrors, endless

Back to back, forever

Falling, through time and space, edge

All these same people

Are they really me? Who knows

Is the who I am

The one I am reflected

Infinitely once?

Jeans, cotton blue-gray

Worn with care, worn, constant wear

Knees dirty, dusty

His worn dusty jeans

Working out in the backyard

Under a blue sky

Now, the rain drizzles

Calming the dusty dry ground

No more working jeans

Sitting on a wooden bench

Under the crepe ribbons

Drunk with envy

A wayward plan unfurls in my head:

Yes, yes, yes.

Watching all the couples

Twirl beneath the lights

Spin-top pairs

I wonder

Will it ever be my turn?

Tormented,

The weight of my future actions

Laying on my chest

Tulle pools.

I rise

With a shake,

And make my way to the middle of the gym floor

Where the red lines

Intersect

The blue lines intersect.

Their thoughts hang in the air

Choking my every breath

Their voices, their glares, their hatred

It rolls through the crowd

While they binge on each other

On easy-going youth

The rest of us are left with nothing

I am left with nothing

Starving on the wooden benches in the corner

It just isn't right

Everything they were handed

Gifted fairy tales

I was denied

Doomed from the start

My words sear

We have nothing

I have nothing

While you have everything

Don’t you remember what they taught us in kindergarten

Share, share, share?

Or did you choose to forget

Like you chose to forget my name

Once we reached middle school

Like how

You pretended you didn't know me

When you saw me in the hallway

You were everything to me

My protector, my pretender

And you just ignored me like I meant nothing

Purple silk

Hair-spray curls

Her glossy lips blubber just a little

Just enough for me to see

The crowd

Stills

Pausing

Encroaching

The conclusion of my plan hollows my thoughts

What if I fail?

But the circle

Ringing around me

Signals me to try anyways

Tinsel-streaked hair of the man in God’s gown

Catching the glow of the cathedral lights

Heaven’s star in body form

A present sent from above

Stories stained in glass

Rising from the pew a tree line of immaculate details

Cranberry-coloured dresses

Buttoned sleeves and gleaming leather

Caroling songs on the organ’s last breath

With the body of Christ on our tongue

The birth of spirit for another month

Oh, Virgin Mary

Hold us tightly

Promise us no cane from the hand of mankind

As I was pulling myself out of the summer training pool one last time, my teammate grabbed my foot. She gently yanked me back down into the water.

“Where do you think you’re going? Practice isn’t over yet!” She smiled sadly.

“I should probably be headed out soon, my flight leaves in a couple hours.”

“And you’re not fully packed yet?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Of course not, Hayley. Still have some last-minute things to add. Do you think most girls bring their prom dresses with them to college?”

We laughed. While the other lanes kept swimming, we paused in silence, listening to the sound of the strokes against the water and the distant giggling of children in the kiddie pool. We wanted to hold this moment, her and I, but we also wished that it had never come to this. Towards the end, when you’re saying goodbye, it feels like you’ve never known anything else. Everything up to that was a series of lasts, and I didn’t remember how to live in the moment anymore. There was no present, just hauntings of the past and the looming fear of the future. I looked over to the sidelines, where our coach pretended to be watching the other swimmers. Usually, she would be all too quick to jump on us and tell us to get back to practice. I hated it in those moments, but now, I wished for that normalcy once more, something to bring me back and pretend like this was what I was going to do forever.

“I really should get going.”

The spell was broken.

“Tell me again why you can’t stay and go to Pacific. We could come back as assistant coaches, run the Learn to Swim program, teach the pre-competitive swimmers.”

“Out East is where the action's at. You know how good Indiana’s swim program is.”

“They’ve churned out a lot of Olympians.”

“Sure have. And, you know, this town is my hometown.”

Hometown. It sure carried a lot of weight between us. I wouldn’t have used it the same way back when I moved in halfway through 5th grade and started my last year of Elementary school with kids I’d never met before. But Hayley had been there, and Hayley had convinced me to go persuade my mom to bring me to a morning practice, test it out. Before the sun rose, I was in the pool, swimming away with the other kids. I wasn’t that fast, or that technically skilled, but when my coach saw me beaming when I got out of the pool, she told me to come back again the next day. And I did. For seven years I swam on that team, me and Hayley always in the same lane, always racing each other and telling jokes. But outside of the pool, things were different. When I didn’t have Hayley, I didn’t have anyone. Nobody else really took to me like she did – I didn’t match up with small town values. I wanted change in the world, I thought I could fix all the little things that bothered me, but all I faced was opposition. From my classmates, from my teachers, from adults. So, when the time came to apply to university, I knew that this would be my chance to get out and make big changes. I couldn’t stay here forever. That’s why I did something I would never tell Hayley: I didn’t apply to Pacific. When she got her acceptance letter, and I supposedly got mine, I told her that the scholarships weren’t as good as I had hoped. That Indiana University had offered me a full ride as a student athlete, and since Pacific didn’t even compete at that level… I made excuses. Excuses when I should have been honest.

“Right, your hometown. Meaning… you better come swimming with us at Christmas. You can show us all the drills that the fancy Olympic coaches are teaching you guys out there.”

“I sure will. And I’ll tell you all the stories about the people I meet and my roommate and my new teammates and the Midwest boys.”

I gave her a big splash, and we giggled.

“Girls, stop horsing around out there. And Cadence, stop distracting Hayley. We have a competition next week that we're going to crush. If we practice.” I blushed red. Even though this was a weekly, if not daily, occurrence, it was still embarrassing to be called out. My coach was an amazing woman, and even though I wouldn’t tell her until I had grown out of my teenage years, she was someone who I looked up to, and whose words of wisdom kept me going through college.

“Well,” I turned back to Hayley gingerly, “my mom’s going to be mad if I take any longer.”

I pulled myself out of the pool once more, this time, with no inhibition. I sat on the side with my feet in the water and pulled off my swim cap and goggles. My hair fell around my shoulders in damp clumps. The children in the kiddie pool screamed.

“Are you gonna get out and hug me goodbye?”

“No. I’ll stay in the pool and drown, so I don’t have to watch you leave.”

“Will I find you there when I come back at Christmas?”

“Yep. The chlorine will preserve me pretty well, I’m guessing. But” she said in a fakely dramatic tone. “I won’t have any soul left in my long dead body. You’ll take it with you when you go. You’ll take it with you, and bury it in the Midwest fields, under cornrows and big blue skies. I’ll live amongst the cattle and the people, floating like a ghost, waiting for you to come find me, the treasure you left behind.” Sighing, she flung her head and arms back, before sinking down into the water. When she resurfaced a few moments later, both of us smiling, I dragged her onto the decks.

“Come on, I gotta get going. I can feel my mom sending me telepathic messages about being late.”

“I guess this is goodbye.”

“Nope, this is a see you later.”

“...God, that was cheesy. I hope we never say something that unfunny again.” I giggled.

“Me too. Now give me a hug.”

Dripping wet, we gave each other one last hug as real teammates. We both knew things would never be the same again. We had always been told that high school friendships just don’t last. You go off to college, you change, you come home and see your old friends and realize they’re not the same as they used to be either. People can’t stay frozen in time, and you can’t talk to people in your memories. And then one day, you’re looking back wistfully on your life, and you think about everyone who’s made you who you are today. Sometimes you wish there were things you could have said to them that you didn’t, or you wonder where they’re at in life. It hurts, but that’s what it means to grow up.

Five church bells. My breath catches in my chest as I press my fingers into the sandy corners of the stony wall. Tiny grains stick in my skin. Footsteps reverberate through the hallway, but nobody dares make a sound. The lack of clang cups and cackling insults is dizzying. I usually relish silence, but now, I shiver.

The steady footsteps come to a stop outside of my cell, but I don’t dare look up. Their stares way on my skin, a mix of pity, a mix of disgust. A shadow reaches forward to unlock my door, swinging it open with a greasy squeak. It hits the wall. The clash echoes through the cell. A pause.

“The priest is here to read you your last rites.”

I swallow back a scream.

“My dear child,” The priest begins, bending down. “As this hour dawns upon us, I ask, do you have any final sins to confess?”

I try to speak, but the words escape me. The priest’s presence reminds me of my mother’s dying body, a man in clothes very much like his own stood nearby. My memories come back vividly. An outstretched arm anointing her feverish forehead and my father looking through the flickering candlelight on the nightstand. As the priest reaches out to lay a hand on my head, I flinch.

“You have done much wrong, but God can forgive all. There is no need to die in shame.”

Tears roll down my cheeks. But I’m not scared. Death is a release, I don’t have any fear. It was a release for my mother, it will be a release for me. Just as she found solace in the abyss, so can I. Solitude is my only heaven.

“Shall we pray the Apostle’s Creed?”

I said nothing.

“Do you renew your baptismal promise?” He prompted.

Silence. Frustrated with my noncompliance, he stood up.

“It is at times like these that I wonder if God believes we can all find salvation. I think some are just destined to the fiery pits of hell.”

He turned to the guards.

“I’ve done all I can do.”

My chains clank against the worn floor. Two guards held my elbows on either side, their shoulders rising above my head like the capstone mountains of a fjord. They protect me from the crowd around us. The people make no audible sound, only whispers, but their stares are enough to overwhelm me. They judge what they do not know. Some cry, but more look on vehemently. A distant voice rises above the silence.

“God be with you.”

I turn to look behind me, at the top of the tower, where a prisoner waves their arm. The crowd turns to look too, and after a pause, a few whisper the blessing in turn. But I don’t need their false luck. If there was a God, he would be walking besides me now. He would have held my hand as my mother’s soul slipped away, he would have been there when I searched the fields for rotting vegetables, when my father drank away his wife’s memory, when men swarmed me in the night. But there is no God, and nothing after this, save sweet oblivion. This is where I leave my soul, right here, walking towards the gallows in a saintly courtyard. It will not follow me up to the platform. My body carries on in front of the people, but this moment carries no real significance to me anymore. I’ve moved on from the present, from the crowd’s morbid curiosity, from the stony guards at my side. My life ends here, even if my death began long ago.

Song: Hallowed Be Thy Name - Iron Maiden