bluerinse

by Emma Stough

Artiom Vallat

I asked her what she saw when she slept and she said, oh,just something blue. How many hers had I already drawn? Can an echo presume? Our ankles met first, wet with winter sludge — Oops, my sock — Oh, my shoe — I mean: I loved her. I mean: She was blue. We tugged on each other’s coats and adopted each other’s diets and spoke in colloquialisms borrowed from every city we’d ever been. She was always astral projecting: Hush, dear, I’m skyscraping. Moondigging. Have you ever named the same blue, twice? It’s like asking where that smell is coming from. (Everywhere.) Heads aren’t meant for heavy things, she told my inner-ear. (Cochlea.) I put my head down, heavy, on her lap, swallowed her bluerinse breath. I mean: I was comfortable living in a shadow. I mean: The land is sliding off into the water. One day she spoke only when spoken to and I stared long enough to know I’d drawn her after all, right into the space she would leave; blue light, hard black. Graphite-gone. Why do people leave other people? They’re sick of themselves. I mean: They’re sick of the self they become around others. In winter, I take walks and linger and drown my ankles in slush. I mean: There’s only so much power in love. I mean: There are rivers, for everything else.

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Emma Stough is a Midwestern writer with work out in SmokeLong Quarterly, Foglifter, and Barrelhouse.