Clouds covered the sky in a lazy haze, and I wished the moment we had together wouldn’t end. For days, we’d tried to find time for a picnic by the waterfall, a commemoration almost for making it to the end of sophomore year.
You, more adventurous, or at least pretending to be, had come prepared with a bathing suit underneath a linen skirt and loose tank top for the early June heat. And even though I had been the one to suggest the place, a hoodie clung to my skin. Jeans, the tattered ends coated in algae and freshwater, were rolled to my knees. Further up the stream, beat-up Converse laid next to leather boots.
I hadn’t grown up walking along the trails like you. While my days were spent watching the streets of New Haven and Windsor Locks from an apartment window, you walked the Earth, allowing it to give you bruises that remain on your skin today. Occasionally, my father would take me to the park where sand burned my hands, hot asphalt scraping against my flesh. After we moved, I slowly stopped going. I wonder if you ever regretted moving. If you would go back to Manchester, given the chance.
When the full moon turns white that’s when I’ll come home
“I don’t really believe in ghosts.” You turned to me, speaking against the silence.
Our legs dangled over the side of a fallen tree branch. I recalled all the times my mom would mention the spirits she sensed in the shadows of homes we’d lived in throughout the years. Since forever, she has told me she has a sixth sense. While everyone had bedtime stories, she repeated the times she could predict the future, a gift I always hoped to possess. Except, I don’t think I ever inherited it. Instead, I’ve always been too sensitive. Always the one to mourn stray lives and to want to help all living things around.
Sometimes, I convinced myself I could see spirits too. A flicker out of the corner of my eye or an unsuspecting figure standing guard in front of my bedroom door. I would hide under the covers, allowing my stuffed animals to be protectors, afraid the spirits would eventually come after me. Although, I think I knew I was being irrational even then.
“I do.”
Tadpoles swam in the stream beneath us. I kicked more fallen leaves away in the water, trying to clear a path for the not-yet-frogs. They darted away, leaving me to conceal my hurt feelings.
I am going out to see what I can sow
The wind blew by, causing ripples in the water and flurries of green to fall from the forest’s canopy.
As a child, I had a fear of ghosts, but it wasn’t until I got older that the fear of death replaced it. I think it mostly was the work of an overactive imagination and naivety to what dying would bring. I just knew I wanted to die in my sleep; it seemed the most peaceful to go.
“I think we’re all reincarnations. We keep being reborn until we learn our life lesson.” Birds chirped back to one another, and I’d like to imagine they agreed with me.
“I don’t think there’s an afterlife. We decompose in nature, and we live on in others’ memories. I was telling my history teacher about this, too, and he told me how, as a baby, his daughter was always laughing or singing, and even now, she’s the same. I don’t think it’s because she lived another life, and that person’s personality is inside her. Her experiences shaped her.”
I grew up with trips to crystal shops and my mom burning sage or incense weekly. I would wake up in the middle of the night to her pulling tarot cards, only a candle to light the space. You’ve often told me how your mom didn’t really believe in that sort of thing.
Another flurry touched the soil it once grew from, and I couldn’t help but wonder if a soul was trapped within the chlorophyll. If you grew up the way I did, would your thoughts be different? Maybe you’re right; we’re not metempsychosis.
And I don’t know where I’ll go
