Brynn Hambley
The day is choked with oven heat against the dullness of my skin. The lids close to my soul and I let my dirt-streaked toes swish through
emerald Earth,
sunny, electric, shivering as it reaches up to hold me, my ankles like tree roots.
I cannot escape the grey of the coming clouds, sky-water the only blue I could drown in, liquid coursing through and around me deeper than my deepest roots,
louder than the song that old Pittsburgh theater sang to me on her stage notes
that echo in my veins even though the winds of Gettysburg enfold me. (Maybe I will grow here and maybe I will whither.)
The clouds dissipate and
I am drinking in the prospects of surviving the winter. The thoughts ground me deeper in the war-torn soil, earth that I understand,
earth that empathizes with the pain of separation.
This ground tells me “I will hold you when everyone else will not, I will grasp your hands and pull you close,
though the rain and snow enfold you.” I understand now when they call her Mother,
though I have neglected her embrace since the summer. (Maybe I have rooted here and maybe I’m just tethered.) I am softer than the peach of a child’s head,
malleable and melting slightly in the sun.
My eyes gaze over the dew-lit ground through this smoky morning light, painting me almost glowing and not quite blue.
The wind blows raised blooms across my rough and tumble skin and I feel like the breeze through the willows at dawn.
everything begins to settle,
like an old tree trunk sighing with the winter wind. (Maybe I am temporary but I think I can stay.)
Elegy to First Love
Ela Thompson
The first girl I ever knew I loved was odd-eyed. She had one shining briste brown eye and one that was lazy and green. It was india green and vibrant, like full summer foliage, with flecks of gold hidden deep within the iris. It never fully looked at you; indeed, it seemed to see beyond you. To me, Marcelle was the most beautiful girl. Odd-eyes aside, her front teeth were crooked so that one tooth was slightly pushed out and crossed over the other. Her face was round, her cheeks full and pink, so that something about her looked vaguely Korean, although she wasn’t. Her nose was broad, with a distinct bump mid-bridge. Her eyebrows were dark and thick, and, if she let them grow, they’d meet in the middle of her brow. Her skin was always sun- kissed, a deliKate brown, and soft like damp earth.
Loving girls did not come easily to me. I’d always been afraid of girls, not knowing why. I made better friends with boys, who were rough and not afraid to dirty their clothes in the woods or steal through abandoned buildings. This isn’t to say I didn’t have girl friends; I did, but it seemed much harder to keep them. Perhaps this was because I never felt like a girl, more vehemently than I ever felt I wasn’t a boy, and I was told I was supposed to be one over and over. It’s hard to say why, but when I met Marcelle, I knew I loved her and would not let myself give up easily. I won’t say this girl, the first one I knew I loved, was different from other girls. She was soft, gentle, nurturing, like I was taught a girl should be. She had a voice that was quiet, but carried, and she sang pretty bird melodies when she knew someone was listening. She had a way of moving that made you want to reach out and hold her hand or brush the hair from her face. She let me, often, walk to class with her, our fingers knitted tightly by pressure and sweat. It kills a heart to be honest, but I’ve never held a hand that fit so well since. She used to kiss my cheeks, daintily, as you would a buttercup, when we parted, as if to remind me of something I was trying to forget. I was so afraid to love her, or maybe I was afraid she already knew I did.
When I first realized my own feelings, I ran, crying to Marcelle’s roommate, my good friend, Kat. Kat was a 4’11” strawberry shortcake goth, “mother to us all” type, who had not one, but three moms she went home to over breaks. If anyone was going to be able to help me with this romantic awakening, it was her. I remember we sat on her bed, my head in her lap, as I sobbed about what I thought was the most unfortunate thing to ever happen to me. When I was thoroughly finished crying about being in love with a girl,