My seafoam hair comes out in clumps, tangled strands
winding around my fingers every time I brush back my bangs
or twirl dry and splitting curls. I am used to it now, dropping
handfuls everywhere I go. I am on the floorboards of my car,
the walls of the shower. I am skidding across park benches, woven
into birds’ nests. I left bits of me scattered throughout North Carolina,
littering myself all over Charlotte. I am lying on a hotel bed in Arkansas,
then another in New Mexico, intertwined in the ridges of Californian tires,
blocking intersections. I am floating along sandy mountains, hovering
in smoke from campfires and weed until I am licked by a flame and the
smell of burnt hair makes me sick. I ride up the Morongo Basin
on the back of a coyote, but am thrown in the air when it attacks a mother
jackrabbit. I avert my eyes and watch the clouds get slowly further away
as I fall and land in front of her babies who are watching, horrified,
from behind a cracked grey boulder. I want to comfort them, but the wind
picks me up and hurls me toward the coast, and I hit the ocean without a
splash. I sit on the waves and try to enjoy the rise and fall, when a seagull
appears above me. He flaps his wings and cocks his head and snatches me
up in his beak before flying back to the shore to show his friends. I am
placed on the sand and seven of them stare at me, occasionally pecking
at me until I am no longer
one solid strand, but broken into pieces short as cat hair. They get bored
and fly away, scattering my small pieces in their take off. I burrow
in the sand and cry out for my shell, but there is no reply. I wait
for two days before I realize there is simply no body to come back to.
About the Creator
Kye Earley
I'm a 23 year old creative. I write, act, make youtube videos (search CoffeeCat, you'll find me!). I also really really love cats. I do magic and tarot, so those themes sometimes slip into my work. Oh, and I'm secretly a mermaid.
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