"I wish I could see Sissy one more time. It's terrible for her the snow came tonight, but good for me, I think. A nice cushion to walk on." Diana breathed low from the bed, eyes glancing feebly out the open window.

"You sound sure you're leaving tonight. You're going to live 'till you're an old woman." Despite her best efforts, the quiver in Margaret's voice betrayed her.

Diana had been certain for hours it was the end. Margaret had been certain for days.

As Diana finally fell asleep in the glory of the snow, Margaret kissed her forehead and waited until her friend's chest ceased its shallow march. She'd never tell anyone, but in the quiet of the night, as she stood up to alert Sam that his sister was dead, Margaret thought for a second that she'd seen a delicate set of footprints walking away in the snow.

So death had come again, but not for Margaret, never for Margaret. As badly as she wished for it, death decided time and time again to leave her waiting. Perhaps it was true that only the good die young. Perhaps this long life she had been cursed with was the result of some great crime she didn't remember committing.

tell me i'm a burden

you can't do it anymore

bedroom and a sermon

doesn't serve you anymore

"go get an apartment

that you can not afford

and hope nothing happens"

i can't do this anymore

The blades of emerald and juniper grass whisper songs of summers gone. Gone with the gentle wind of halcyon days lost to solitary years. Songs of blush lemondes and flushed cheeks from runs to distant hills. The hills nestle against the twilight blues of the crisp lakes we swam in on brutal nights. Our mothers would come searching the grassy shoreline with flashlights, waiting until we resurfaced, giggling until we were shivering from night breezes and stern threats of taking away our bedroom doors. The water is the same twilight blue of the shutters that covered the dining room windows that I would sit below, staring up at the peeling paint exposing the wooden frame. Waiting for Ms. Fields mother to swing the shutters and curtain open and tell me Ginny would be done with breakfast in 5 minutes; she would toss me an orange and warn me not to take her past the far hillside of the lake. Tiny waves break the blue and reveal distant periwinkle skies, the same color as Ginny's old lacey Sunday school dress. The comforting color I would seek out in the church classroom behind the stairs when Mrs. Langston would separate us to stop our giggling at the imagined smell of Noah’s Ark. Slow rolling clouds smell like the rainy days that wouldn't end.

A faded film scene, gold faded into blue when Ginny stopped coming for the summer. The puzzle piece trees don't interlock and catch me. Untouchable skies are too close to the ground, pressing down on my head and refusing to let go until I crumple into the earth to fossilize and become the oil that they're drilling for beyond the hills. The lake is shallow. I can reach the bottom in the middle, but I’m more at risk of drowning now that she's gone. From early June to late August, Ginny and I lived in the lake. Those all too short summers when she stayed with her grandmother, who demanded to be called “Great Fields.” From September to May, Great Fields lived alone in the wilting house with only my mother and I next door to keep her company. Ginny stopped coming after Great Fields died and left the house to her. No one came back for the house; nothing lives there anymore.

EP idea: the deep end of the pool

tracklist:

blood in the water

july

fever

lyric ideas:

"blood in the water, police on the scene

the girl cried "forgive me" but nobody did"

"you said 'the pool's like an ocean'

and started to cry

you said you wish your emotions

didn't feel like july"

"fever drips down my spine

i crack like a body falling from a great height

hitting the water, diving in straight

the lifeguards are hoping that it's not too late"

i suffer perennial delusions

those visions of grandeur

present a new hope annually

but each failure withers my bones

and i lie in wait, dreaming of a better day

when i will pick up the pen, say ‘dear reader’ and someone will truly be on the other side

verily i say unto thee, i am frightened and so alone

dreams of a life where all that glitters is gold and nothing breaks my bones and i’m never too cold and i don’t grow old wait behind my eyelids

that’s where i run to

that misty plane between this world and the next where dreamers walk every night, i walk among them in daylight

my mind constructs castles in the hazy air to which i’ll never hold the key

and so i stare up, up, up, and am left alone to dream

lost. thrust into the dark again.

wind burn ruins everything.

cataclysmic love for all things covered in snow…

i have nowhere else to go.

the rot in the roots is the same in the leaves and it spreads from tree to tree.

i have spent all these years trying to tell you.

these days i fear i am more grief than girl. i am late january snow pouring temporary solutions over the constant sorrow. i live in fear. will i have to watch everything i love fall away as the leaves do in autumn? will i be left to weather the winter of my life alone? i do not want to live without my family. i cannot afford such a fate. instead of bracing to catch my death, i dream. i dream of spring, the time when everyone is young and no one knows that death lurks in the corner. i try to dream that no one dies. and yet, i know better than to dream of a day where everyone lives. all i ever want is hope and all i’ll ever have is knowledge.