I find a blue bible in the mythical section of the bookstore.

I laugh once at myself

Then twice at the air because of it.

I'm too far away from home I think

My daddy is talking in quick whispers and bushes on the pay phone in the store. Making sure to look at me at each pause.

A memory.

I recline where I can't be seen.

In the darker corners of the shop, where the low sun window light doesn't reach.

I read by the dust and web, and let the grey carpet smell envelop me and the mint candy bowl from the bookkeepers desk keep me company

This summer, in this town, in his house, in my garden– I think, its all meant to remind me that strings are short.

My shoe laces need to be replaced, torn and chewed from the fun I've made.

And warmth goes as quick as a touch it leaves,

the bible

I smell her scent in the gold rimmed pages.

Her steeped ginger teas and fresh herbs and richly oiled scalp and skin. Her fingers, though roughened with life and veined, her touch

oh her touch before was a rough spelling of

Gentle

she's calling me home.

I watch my hands with the same brown colour, the same roughness the same blood beating within them. The ones that can't catch anything good even when it's already there

I take the book home,

I don't see the boy or girl

I haven't seen either of them since

the towns been sick

there's ugly talk of things to happen soon, but my daddy keeps my ears covered when the town speaks

The book, the bible

I write my daddy's name inside of it as a prayer, I nestle it underneath my covers before he walks into the room with that off smile

"are ya alright baby girl?"

"Are you?"

He hadn't looked at me like that, not since I was new to him, maybe I am again now.

Remember me this way. Not the way you last see me, I want you to remember your child, loving you like you're a God in a mans body.

Remember me for what I was before then, before I ruined the ground you built. The garden that loved me in ways that a home should.

I wrote your name in a book that had it already written. This is my psalm, this is my chapter, dedicated to you.