by Emily K., 16 (she/her)
Find me in the riverbend where we first met, ankles swept by the flowing tide and toes edged between the pebbles. There, we smiled and wandered astray together, drifting far off the sandy path and from the counselors leading the trail.
We were like ribbons billowing in the wind in those infinite, tangled corridors of twigs, leaves, and boughs. Delirious, we journeyed deeper and deeper into that endless, sylvan maze, our breadcrumb trail back to the camp disintegrating with each stride we took. There was no direction, no sense of logic. We didn’t know where we were going or where we’d end up (we never have). All we did know was that we were free, bound to no place.
Amid all the cicada hum and birdsong, I now realize that we were two girls putting on a play for all the world. You were the forest, in your green overalls and pinecone hair, with your sunburnt skin and specks of wet soil dotting your knees. I was everything else, anything you wanted me to be: the soil, the sand, the river you found me in. The sky was our stage, the universe our audience.
You had moved just like air. Like breath.
…
Find me the night we trickled to the field like Icarus to a thousand fluttering suns. As we collapsed onto the grass, there was a quiet hum, then a flicker. One floated down to your hand and cradled your finger; you offered me the golden ring.
I said I couldn’t, I was afraid of monsters. But it was already on my palm.
“She won’t bite you,” you said, with a smile that made me believe it was true.
I opened my eyes and looked down at my hands. I could feel it pulsing on my skin, on and off, like a heartbeat. There, it traced my skin stitches and tickled the creases with its little legs. In the fluttering of its skittish wings, I swear I could hear my mother’s lullabies, a thousand prayers in bed, and the sound of a girl wishing and wishing and wishing.
There was a light, then a darkness, then a light. Its small body was ever-changing, blazing with brightness and then dimming away, as though afraid to be seen. I wanted to say “it’s okay. you can be a flame.” But I didn’t know how to.
I didn’t know how to.
I looked up at you and wondered and waited, thinking you could read my mind. I longed for you to say the words, to speak the language of fireflies.
…
Find me in the log cabin with the chipped paint and drippy sinks; in the suffocating dampness and dryness, murmuring secrets under the moth light.
We were lying on your bed, bottom bunk. Cards were laid at our sides, spilling over the bedsheets and onto the floorboards. As you held me in your lap and brushed the hair out of my face, I was electrified, my heart pounding so loudly I thought you could hear every palpitation and blood rush that came whenever you uttered a single word.
I didn’t know when (or how) to breathe.
Why? Someone asked in the corner of my mind. Sounded like my mother, or some other voice at the dinner table.
Why her, why a girl? The voice demanded.
I looked at you. You, who wore seven loom bracelets on each wrist and crooked smiles on your face. You, in your ragged camp t-shirt, tied at the waist with a hair tie. You, in the way you laughed (curled over, eyes closed, hand gripping mine). You, in how you made it all okay. Because she is everything, I told the voice.
Because you are everything.
…
Find me in the words “summer camp.” Three brisk syllables that become beads of sweat pulsing down my neck. Every letter is a limb getting tangled in the sun.
Say it aloud, and I can taste shaved ice on the tip of my tongue, the artificial flavor of orange zest lingering at the sides of my mouth. I can feel the itch of mosquito bites up and down my legs. I can see you, standing beside me in every sun-drenched memory, gazing at me with a look I couldn’t begin to describe. And when I close my eyes and whisper the words in the dark (“summer camp!”), it’ll be a hundred degrees all over again, my face nearing yours, our lips only inches apart.
“Summer camp,” and I find myself in your arms, holding me until I glow.
New Jersey
Bridge Ink 