'In the old days at home the Neverland had always begun to look a little dark and threatening by bedtime. Then unexplored patches arose in it and spread, black shadows moved about in them, the roar of the beasts of prey was quite different now, and...
i miss my rituals like candle light in the wintertime. i remember the cool frost of my fingers; their sleepless nails catch as i think of when i skinned my shoulder blades, felt them raw under my bra strap --
i take a spoonful of cold soup: it is orange with chunks of carrot and potato. vegetable soup. cheese sprinkled and melted and gone limp. emmental. i still smell the pepper, ground not so fresh -- hours ago, the fire has died and we have all died some. you died the most. and my mother's branches cracked like i'd never seen before. (Daddy wasn't there) and our matriarch mourns over her lost girl. we weep only as women and daughters do. (and Daddy isn't Daddy anymore after that.)
that soup still catches in my stomach from time to time, the red of the sofa, your tongue lolling between your teeth, the stone white of your limbs like a phantom of my girlhood though i don't see her anymore.
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