A Language of Limbs

by Dylin Hardcastle

Here, I get to exist between books. Tiny worlds open up to me and become big. I go somewhere else, into the blackened woods of old fairytales, into the blinding white of future stars. I read and read and read.

I realise that hate and love sometimes come wrapped up and intertwined.

I remember how nothing necessarily felt wrong, until it suddenly felt right.

We swap books and I learn him in the margins. I learn him in the words he’s underlined and the pages he’s folded. Sometimes, I read a passage and find he’s written at the edge everything I want to say, as though he has lifted the thought straight out of my heart.

People often talk about how what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And I think, sometimes, what doesn’t kill you makes you tired.

let the water carry what you can’t.