(TW! S/H) mid-march

Today I thought about celebrating Halloween in March. Carving my face up like a jack-o-lantern with the same knife my mother used to slice cucumbers before the weather got cold.

Sometimes I look at my hands, at my fingers curled around a pen or maybe nothing at all, and I tremble. I fear the day my body betrays me, and at the same time feel as though it already has.

When I was younger I was told I had piano fingers. I held my father's hand in the parking lot of the baptist church. Now I can't even hold secrets. Water in my hands.

I think often about that maple tree across the street-- the one bearing our initials like clumsy tattoos. Still, I am itching to make art, to be art. My body, a canvas.

What would I be if not sick?