A delicate wave of split skin, a scabbed gape over my thumb's knuckle; my littlest one drew my blood. She would no doubt shred my skin to lace before licking each wound--tenderly, but not so much apologetically. In the mornings, she displays something of graciousness and need. At night, she runs along the edge of the woods, chasing the sound of her own foot steps.

The day pales, my love and sorrow. My breaths are shallow. I hardly breathe at all.

The home that no longer speaks to me keeps his camel eyes shut, keeps me from sleeping. My key inside unforgiving locks and everything I need. I sit in the stiff grass, in the meager shadow of our stunted dogwood. The home that ignores me because I left hastily, damning me with his silence. I think about laying in bed, milky in the glow of the streetlamp, tracing the dance of light and shadow over my hips, over the trail of discolored skin leading from my navel; of being housed and held against a beating heat source; of unresponsive blinds gusting open, a sign of life and I'm okay.

Lars, I never cared for Japan.

I've been chewing on the corner of my lip for days, pondering the logistics of death/dying, on being raised by wolves and stoically ignoring the cold.

In the spring, I'll burn old words to trigger the thaw.

The boy from sand and dry wind - a crab or camel - saturates and dissolves; the corrosive agent, the mark slithering in water. I'm not convinced one must do as the snake does.

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