Throw a fish
I ran down the wooden stairs onto the beach. Already everything was turning, ruins smoldering in the river's sunken belly, like scraps of lightning left to do a screeching dance in a teapot over a blue gas flame. The pitch dark was dusted with scaly eyes, people and cats creeping out, some without skins. If belief is a jungle before a forest fire, wisdom is the charred still-breathing wasteland, warming its bald ghost against the sun's lonely lamp.
I wanted to write a letter to let you know that the marsh is alive now with radioactive spiders and butterflies, and that we may all become sterile here, but the sunsets are beautiful. Neon, amethyst, golden, bruises that resemble violets under pink snow. I still dream about you. My skin is changing colour. Now I am a soft shade of purple and I blend in with the sky.
I wanted to write a letter to let you know that the marsh is alive now with radioactive spiders and butterflies, and that we may all become sterile here, but the sunsets are beautiful. Neon, amethyst, golden, bruises that resemble violets under pink snow. I still dream about you. My skin is changing colour. Now I am a soft shade of purple and I blend in with the sky.
I know we won't meet again, and I don't know if you remember how we touched. but someday, before you get old, go stand out in a field, and throw a fish back into the moon for me.
By: Clara Engel