I lie facedown on the tallest tree branch, hair bleeding into greenish-brown wood that tastes like dark rain. I reach my hand up and curl it, ring finger to thumb, just within my sightline. My fingers feel soft against each other, slick with moss and the places between the bark that glisten with last night’s rain. The circle I form with my hand fits perfectly around the edge of sunlight melting over the horizon and I stare until my eyes begin to burn.
My grandmother once told me that the cure for anything could always be found somewhere in the world. “It might not be five minutes away,” she had said, pinching tea into bags that had gentle embroidery along the edges. “But it’s out there. Be careful what you give away to find it.”
I close my eyes. Open them. Smile at an aphid making a home for itself on a twig near the sun between my fingers. I like this silence before my house and my friends wake and take away the light. I like the cadence to the world, the light between my fingers, the water against my cheek and the rhythm of my heart slowing down. I put down roots with the old oak tree, drinking in the medicine of the mineral rain.

"Can I get a light?"
and a withered, ***** hand reaches out.
She leans in, inhales, and spark.
Here in this moment,
there is intimacy.

This a moment of trust,
as she leans toward a stranger
and a flame in his hand.
Their eyes never meet,
their flesh does not touch...
and yet here in this moment,
there is intimacy.

There is nothing quite like the sight,
of a beautiful girl,
bright eyes, smooth features--
leaning against a wall,
welcoming slow death into her lungs .

Her cheeks are flushed from the cold,
her chin tilts upward
as she bites the smoke,
savoring it's sweetness.

There is nothing quite like the sight
of the smoke dancing around her,
as she exhales that death into the world
slowly, gracefully through soft lips

Where did we get lost?
When did this moment of intimacy grow so deadly?
When our young get lost in the smoke,
blinking fast, stinging eyes, they cry themselves to sleep.
Unaware that the smoke that hurts so much,
is from their own hands.