Together We Rot

by Skyla Arndt

“You can’t solve crimes by committing your own,”

I meannnn

could’ve sworn my mother’s bracelet jangled from her wrist.

My father isn’t a butterfly. He’s a praying mantis.

I’ve grown in his image—wild, woodsy hair; eyes more golden than green, amber spilling in the center. Identical right down to the moles marring our skin.

He’s talking about my eighteenth birthday. The day I graduate early and life as I know it uproots.

“God gave you ribs for a reason,

“Don’t wear your heart so openly on your sleeve.”

My father made me memorize hundreds, and when my tongue tripped or the words failed me, he’d beat the line into my skin.

The roar of the party fades and my thoughts scream like a biblical swarm of locusts.

Bright lights catch on the broken bottle still on the floor, throwing color like a kaleidoscope. That’s what a group of butterflies are called. A kaleidoscope. I’ve always loved that.

Sinner, sinner, sinner. My nails drag down my tongue, clawing away the layer of filth with equally filthy hands. I need to get the taste out before it roots itself inside me and stays forever. I’ll pray and I’ll pray until it goes away.

With every passing year, the Morguewood creeps closer. Vines tangle up the walls, scratching the sides like it might tear us apart if it tries hard enough.

I’m rooted here forever.

He doesn’t get to pick and choose when to care about me.

Your father sacrificing animals in the woods, your mother wearing Mom’s jewelry, your dad walking into the church and literally never coming out one night. The next morning he was back at your house. I swear to God I didn’t fall asleep, but—”

Then, that same dark voice: Does it matter?

“When thy God calls for blood”—his

“thou shall offer your sons unto him. The blood shall water thy crops and the bones shall nourish the earth. For with life there is death, but with sacrifice there is eternity.”

The Bible is filled with batshit sayings like that.”

clasped them in prayer once when my mother went missing, but no amount of “amen”s brought her home. That’s when my folded hands turned to fists. God and the law might have given up on my mother, but I haven’t.

If you don’t dispose of Elwood soon, the forest will grow in him, and we’ll all be dead.

Other people know to draw back when they touch a flame. I only know how to walk through the coals.

flowers sprouting with every kiss. Planted and raised by my own desire. Petals like bruises, vines that mimic her curves. A kiss that lasts forever yet ends all too soon.

“These tunnels stretch beneath this entire forest. We own these trees and we always have.”

“Mercy isn’t the idle moments between rage. It isn’t just the absence of pain.”

When you’re angry, she says, it’s like you’re on fire. You need to cool off or you’ll burn yourself and those you care about.

Are you prepared to love a monster?”

“From the earth you were forged, and to the dirt you shall return.”

I was so caught up in my own grief that I ended up making yours twice as difficult.

“Now I know. I am the forest. Every tree, every blade of grass. All of this is me and it always has been. I never knew. This is my home. The forest has accepted me because I was the first sacrifice to offer myself willingly.”

can wait forever for you to come home.”