What Lies in the Woods

by Kate Alice Marshall

There is a wilderness in little girls. We could not contain it. It made magic of the rain and a temple of the forest. We raced down narrow trails, hair flying wind-wild behind us, and pretended that the slender spruce and hemlock were still the ancient woods that industry had chewed down to splinters. We made ourselves into warriors, into queens, into goddesses.

But why should she be able to leave the woods, when I never had?

We’d wrapped our hands around our secrets like barbed wire, even when they cut into us. Even when there was no goddamn reason not to let go. I was still holding on.

It was as if he was afraid that if he actually touched me, I would vanish.

Light lay like fragile lace across the trees, afternoon tumbling into evening.

back before the blade made constellations of scars on my skin.