CW: mentions of weapons / wounds
I fish for my hands on weekends, baiting hooks
with heirloom rings because even metal remembers
more than me. See: every bullet recalls
its gun. Every body is birthed from crime.
I list my sins on receipts that sink into
water, released into salt. One: the number
of mouths. Two: every exit I stole, every mile
I spent. Three: the middle school field trip where I spent
five dollars to press pennies into presidents. How
when I fisted the coins, my palms burned
with the faces of dead men. How I tried to smooth
copper back into currency, but it was branded
with a history that was barely mine. Now, I reel
in knives, all my family’s quiet wounds. I cast my ghosts
into sails. Leash them to my oars so they can knuckle
me to sea, every gust a breath. Noon rots into night,
and I snare pocket watches on my hooks, winding
their clocks to morning so I can watch years
spill in reverse. So much color. So many days to keep.
with heirloom rings because even metal remembers
more than me. See: every bullet recalls
its gun. Every body is birthed from crime.
I list my sins on receipts that sink into
water, released into salt. One: the number
of mouths. Two: every exit I stole, every mile
I spent. Three: the middle school field trip where I spent
five dollars to press pennies into presidents. How
when I fisted the coins, my palms burned
with the faces of dead men. How I tried to smooth
copper back into currency, but it was branded
with a history that was barely mine. Now, I reel
in knives, all my family’s quiet wounds. I cast my ghosts
into sails. Leash them to my oars so they can knuckle
me to sea, every gust a breath. Noon rots into night,
and I snare pocket watches on my hooks, winding
their clocks to morning so I can watch years
spill in reverse. So much color. So many days to keep.
Stella Lei is a teen writer from Pennsylvania whose work is published or forthcoming in Four Way Review, trampset, Okay Donkey Magazine, and elsewhere. She is an Editor in Chief for The Augment Review, she has two cats, and she tweets @stellalei04. You can find more of her work at stellaleiwrites.weebly.com.