A fairy keeps track of February

1.      

I’ve never seen you as happy as you were last night. I want to hold your hand, so you don’t slip on lake ice.

2.      

Dozens of deer starfish, burnt and concealing a peachy stomach, make me cry. I wonder what it would be like to go home together, I wonder if you could save my life.

3.      

The way all fires remind me of the past, when we walked through your family’s sculpture forest, and all the iron and wire scared me.

4.      

I see the mushroom castle out of the corner of my eye, shrouded in midnight, there are foxes asleep on the front steps and inside is someone who will help me protect my heart. Inside are pots of overflowing soup, there are cold floors and bridges between rooms, there is a room called “Loss Space” where I go at night to grieve, and there is a balcony coated in patches of blue mold and discarded frog toes. All evening I sit in the kitchen, waiting for you to find me.

5.      

You might sit across from me, you might open the fridge where we keep phantom eggs and queen toast, frosted butter sculptures, the pitcher of blue snowflake sangria that you love so much.

6.      

You might say you love me.

7.      

      A group of foxes is called a star, a cluster of stars is called a banquet, stacks of dishes at a banquet are called desires, there is a bucket under my bed for my tears but now it is filled with leaves, and at the bottom of the bucket is your necklace, discarded at a party, I remember I helped you with the clasp, I remember I apologized when I became overwhelmed by your hair, which smelled like lilacs.

8.      

You might sit by me while I bathe, dagger in your lap, ready to crush any ghost elk that dare disguise themselves as men, proclaiming their adoration for me but you know they want to eat my crush like it’s rare and pepper-coated, you might save me, you might wonder if I’ll ever reveal my true self to you.

9.      

      Your body fits in the Black Tupelo, which has created a chair for you, but not me, I sit cross-legged and looking into your clear-ash eyes, you are lifting your hands in the air and carving a shape, see? I do see, your magic twists a coastline out of thin air, fingers spark with salt bursts, thorns that are blue and bluer, palms rain, don’t you miss these spaces, you ask, but I’m too busy gazing at the space between your thumb and finger to be of much help.

10.   

      So, I might trust you. Let me try and describe that feeling—take your shoulders like you do, press your back against mine, close your eyes to the velvet ivy and windowless windows, suddenly, I might have something to say to you.

11.   

      Your red cape in the water looks a lot like blood.

12.   

      There is this falling pressure and it tastes like cinnamon sugar.

13.   

      You raise your hands on a Tuesday; the house opens its doors, the forest knits together, ivy and assured, as if I could ever feast with anyone but you, clear eyes are an ice storm, a glass of water tucked away on my nightstand, you tell me to come closer, I do not feel ashamed.

14.   

      The water is a mirror. We carry bags of seeds into the winter wood, you told me once you thought you could twist a forest in a forest until the green was a tunnel and the sunlight was maybe. I am afraid of the lake, but I go anyway, propping open the lid of the cedar box with my foot as you fetch seeds, excitedly naming primrose, sage, merry bells, but these aren’t for the root zone, these are for the valley. I nod, wondering if you’ll hold my hand on the way back, lungs still coated in ice shards from the time I slipped and fell from the bank into the mud.

15.   

      You’ve left indigo milk caps in my sink. I walk the frost path to thank you but you’re not home, and all the candles are dim. I see antlers in the kitchen and wonder.

16.   

      Unnatural light and fruits you can’t eat. You wonder why I am looking at you during dinner. I take desire and hide it in the cabinet. That evening, everyone is flushed and doubling down in conversation, no one stops playing music, the kitchen overflows, the sky is envious.

17.   

      When you catch me outside, you shrug.

      “I guess we should replace the fire so your sister can see her sheet music.”

      I try not to grab your face. Instead, I go home with a bat whose bed is a green stained-glass box, we could have an affair but I’m not hungry enough.

18.   

      Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to go for a walk?

19.   

Shattered, we embrace. What I thought were wings are now claws. You eat my love and I let you, alight from within in the place where there could be a heart, a bundle of teeth in cheese cloth, a prize, a secret, a candle stick, a clock, a meadow, a person, a sparkle, a parted mouth, a riddle, a rain on the house, and a forest in hushed mountains, soon I am twist then flick, my mouth is gone, I am the pink lightning bolt which once resided in your chest, but after the spell I’m free, no body of mine could ever hope to properly convey the rush of heat and bandages, the curve of paws and tear-streaked cheeks, you are melting my stomach, my history escapes through an open window and bursts into a thousand blue-flecked shells with eyes and mouths and good looks.

20.   

Mango caramel chocolate in squares. Caramel bacon, blue chocolate ribbon, strips of peppermint bark, ginger bundled in green cloth, I press my face to the glass and contemplate what I want to eat the most. There are snowflakes drizzled in whiskey-infused white chocolate, there are trees made entirely out of sugar, I begin to wonder if the lamps too are crystalline, if the water has been infused with batter, why the air smells so delicious and chilled despite how the heat is blaring through the vents. Outside, it is in the single digits, wind blowing clover around the street, clouds overhead bear the potential for rain, snow, maybe later there will be sleet. I wear your scarf, I walk home alone.

21.   

I trip, I eat paprika, I hide in mother’s lace folds, nights you disappear, the piano doesn’t let me play it, you may never light the path with me but you did hold my hand in the harp room and everyone wondered if the moon was a bad influence or if you were just trying to support me after I winded myself chasing blue mycelia beetles, you’re only there to prop me up because I’m prone to falling in lakes, they don’t know my love is blue for you.

22.   

You hold my heart when we’re eating soup.

23.   

You carry me through violet fields, my body is draped over your back like a wet butterfly, there is no wind and the only howling you hear is from a sob, I cried and the forest caught my voice, tossing loss from limb-to-green-hand until finally the sound burrows into the earth, its new hiding place among rubber balls, a red shovel, twin antlers, a letter I once wrote begging you to come to my window, what do I do now that the earth has my shame in its mouth?

24.

      Why not tell me? It’s the last secret either of us has.

25.   

      Sugar. Finally, Saturn cake. Clementines, beautiful blue beaded lobster, salted tomatoes, maple, rose chips, chiffon, your hips, coco, glass bread, crystal, must we be near the others?

26.   

      Mars, a Saturn ring, an achievement, a god both still and quiet, a becoming, the day I wrapped love in a piece of uncooked pasta, cold flakes, sweets, bubbles, masses, watching, I want you and I’m not still.

27.   

      There is frosting in my hair when I wake up, I recall I was up late eating sticky buns, I love baked goods and the cool of the day, eventually I’ll swallow the breeze, I want to remain strange, you said I should rest easy, you said there is magic hidden in fire blossoms, perhaps in glue, and when we meet you walk me to the dining hall without holding my hand, I prepare my face, the pre-dawn lights are still on, when you press me into the fridge my heart wakes slowly.

28.   

Rivulets. Clean pebbles, chipped glassware, the moths have been enchanted so they hiss. When I don’t see you that evening, I take soil in my hands and write a letter explaining that you are my home.

29.   

Three minutes shy of midnight you’re knocking at my window, face unreadable. I let you inside, wishing longing were not alive, but you’re not empty handed, you’ve sewn me a new pair of wings and when we embrace, I notice you smell of salt, blueberries, maybe petals. The wind rattles the doors, but you flick your wrist, calming the month, and we don’t come up for air, not even when the day collapses in on itself, and we’re left locked outside of time, but I don’t mind, I send loss running.