Nightcrawling

by Leila Mottley

Mama used to tell me that blood is everything, but I think we’re all out here unlearning that sentiment, scraping our knees and asking strangers to patch us back up.

We’re all wanting something, though; most of us replacing what we really want with skin, which works until you wake up and the mirror is a blur of time twisting around the throat.

That boy is a wonder. He’s my autumn rain. My last picture of the sun before it sets. Daytime is not possible without Trevor. Not even sure the sun comes out without Trevor.

She is the bottom of the ocean, where all the magic hides beneath too many layers of dark and water and salt.

I am telling her how these streets open us up and remove the part of us most worth keeping: the child left in us. The rounded jaw that can’t even hold a scream no more because they take that too. They take everything.