Dear AnyOneGirl…

Dear Jane,

I missed you today.

I saw the back of a girl in the street – my eyes thought it was you but my mind knew
it wasn’t. Her hair swung like vines across her thin back, rosy brown ropes burning
red at the ends. Her skin too, just like yours; pale with rivers of freckles that ran into
patches of sea, trickling into rivers again. She disappeared into a brick building with
white fire escapes winding up the walls like metal lace.

When the sun crouches low and the city starts to throb with night I think of us, and
how we used to be. Do you remember how flocks of a thousand butterflies would
fill the soft air at dusk, their wings humming on our skin? We would wait all day for
those few short hours, to get ready. We were an army preparing for war, but with
hotter blood and eyes for weapons.

In our bedrooms we painted our faces with moonbeams just to sweat them away; in
our bathrooms we swallowed stars because we believed they made us brighter; and
for a while, in our hallways we were diamonds.

What happened afterwards was usually forgettable, by nature and our own cause; the
magic leaking out of our soles as soon as we stepped outside, trailing behind us in
glistening wet ribbons.

I found something I wrote after one of those nights; when we’d been running from
sleep for so long that when we finally slowed down, it wasn’t behind us any more.

there’s rust in my veins
but my blood’s quick as mercury
got a voice like a mountain range
the sea says it’s pretty
I lullaby night’s daughters
when the moon is peeled and tight
my mouth’s fulla sour kisses
the sun is whispering goodnight

Don’t you wish we’d never fade?

Love,

Amy

Written by Amy Fraser

Read more of Amy’s writing here at onislands