BY NATALIE ROMAN

i gave marissa my last piece of twine,
tied loosely around the wrist,
slippery down forearms

i imagined the way her fingers would sew
words onto shirts

i wanted to sew her into my skin

the hairs of our arms,
blonde on blonde,
wove like wheat,
as we ran into snow,
past trees,
wished to be squirrels,
birds,
clouds,
anything but
two girls in love
anything
but two girls

i gave marissa my last piece of twine,
coarse on the soft of
girl-skin

later, on the train,
she would pick the
frayed ends
licking like lips, like sunlight
pull and prod

until it was thread-bare
and fell to pieces
in the shower she took on
thursday

she tells me through
phone calls,
wires like tin,
and i think,
thursday's child has far to go,
and make equations of metal
and distance

i wonder how many days
until i am thread-bare
and fall to pieces
in the shower
blond on tile,
a pile of girl-skin

BY NATALIE ROMAN

•••••Maria always smiles like she's got a secret. She runs her hands through her hair, untangling balls of curls. Boy says she looks like a lion and Maria laughs smooth and warm like summer rain. Maria and Boy take walks through their favourite park, the big one with lots of trees and the hill that used to be a landfill. They collect leaves and press them into books and Boy takes pictures of branches, trunks, grass, seeds and children dancing and laughing. Maria runs fast and far, in between trees and fields, her fingers touching bark and grass like a kiss. She looks like magic, like a forest spirit, all dressed in long flowing skirts and jangling jewelry and golden sparkling wings. Boy tries to take her picture, but she's too fast; she just ends up a motion blur on the film, a whirl of sparkle and colour, like she's dancing out of the frame. Maria gets tired of running like dancing, so she collapses in a field full of tall grass and weeds, sending up plumes of dandelion spores like wishing. Boy sits down next to her and admires seeds dancing through the air on their tiny clouds. Maria thinks of clouds too, the ones in the sky. Some days the clouds are large and grey and make the sky look like a monster. Today, though, the clouds are light and little, and make the sky look soft and sweet. Maria never wishes the clouds as anything they're not-- teapots or bunnies or cowboys. The clouds are too beautiful to be anything mundane like teapots or bunnies or cowboys. Maria thinks of the word mundane and how it means "of this world." Maria is anything but mundane.
•••••"I wish I could be a cloud. I wish I could move like that. Then I'd really go far...." she says in a breath soft like a prayer. Boy looks at her and says, "Silly Mariagirl, you don't want to be a cloud, because then you wouldn't have a home or anyone to love you and no one would kiss you or hug you or... TICKLE YOU, like this!!!" And Boy attacks Maria's belly with an assault of fingers until it is soft with laughter. Maria's laugh is like a roar and Boy calls her a little lion again, but inside Maria is sad because she wants to go far, past tree branches and telephone wires and the lines of the sky....

When Boy is alone, he speaks to the trees. His fingers touch limbs and leaves like a handshake, like, "Hello, old friend, I've missed you." Boy thinks about how trees are like people, only better. Most of the time when people talk, their words mean nothing, they're empty and dissolve like cotton candy. The trees hardly ever speak, but when they do, it's always something beautiful and meaningful.
•••••Some days, the trees are loud like a rainstorm, but today the trees are quiet like wind and wishes. Boy walks through the trees, touching fingers to bark in his usual, "Hello, old friend" way and catches snippets of conversations. "The sun glitters like fairy wings today" and "The wind is like a secret I've never kept" and "Bugs feel like laughter on limbs." Boy always thinks it's poetry and wants to write it down, speak for the trees, and let everyone read their magic-words. But somehow, he knows the trees wouldn't like this, because the trees don't speak to just anyone.
•••••Boy finds a large tree he doesn't know. Its bark sparkles and its leaves are large and the wind through them sounds so soft and safe and warm that Boy wants to curl up in the roots and fall asleep until he is overtaken by vines and grass and becomes a part of everything. He touches the bark and a feeling like salt waves and gold overcomes him and now more than ever he wishes for his feet to turn to roots and his hair to leaves and his arms to grow long and bark-covered."You have pointed ears like me, and that means that once we were like siblings, only better. Once, you had skin white like birch and hair orange like sunset clouds. You're beautiful, like sunlight dancing on rocks and water." A voice that is sweet and thick like honey, strange and otherworldly yet familiar at the same time, like looking at the stars.
•••••"You people, you're like seeds. You hold all the beauty and magic and love inside of you, letting it grow little by little, until it covers your bones and muscles, until your bodies can't hold them back anymore.... Your friend is sad."
•••••"Maria? But Maria smiles like a secret.... She's not sad." Boy says the words, but deep inside, he doesn't believe them.
•••••"She wants to be the sky. She wants to run out of her own skin. She wants to go to far-places. But she doesn't think she has the strength. She doesn't know she's like a seed and she doesn't think she's growing."
•••••"How can I help her?"
•••••"Help her grow. Your hands are safe and soft. You will make things with them, when the time is right. You will feel it inside you, like dawn and prayer."
•••••The tree voice leaves the air echoing like laughter and glitter. Boy knows that now, somehow, he is different. He feels old and young, wise and dumb at the same time. He knows now that people are like seeds and that Maria is sad even though she laughs like a lion and he knows that his hands are safe and soft, and that he will make things.

Making it was like sleepwalking. Boy didn't know what he was doing, but his legs and hands and eyes most certainly knew. Everyday after school, Boy wandered parks and lingered between the trees, gathering leaves, seeds, spores, flowers, tall-grass, feathers... all the things he thought were most beautiful. His hands chose the most perfect ones, the ones that seemed to glow and hum and dance. For weeks, his hands were lost in a ballet of push and pull, of bend and make, of sew and stitch. His body lost itself as it figured out a way to press the forest into sheets of paper, book and binding. In the end, it was beautiful, as if in his hands wasn't merely a pile of paper, but something glowing and alive, like the voices of the forest or a pond full of fish. He would give it to her, and hopefully, somehow, it would help her grow.