She wandered for days.
Ran her feet against the mud of summer. Her toes, painted every shade of brown including brown.
She preferred the opposite of solitude, but she was without the others this time. Ten years of this time.
She overheard the one wearing name tag and uniform that she was difficult. Taciturn. Grueling to approach.
Someone, decades ago, named her Happy.
Now, she refuses to even stitch her name to her tongue, knowing the irrelevance of its sound.
To describe her morning, one would have to be patient enough to sit through her silence. She meditates until her blood sizzles, vibrating her veins. Then, she shakes her bones like a moondance and heads back into her mute.
She fell in love only once. For one day. Minus the hours she had slept. Another with skin like hers but darker. A wrinkled revision of flesh. They would rub their differences into each other like art. They never spoke or shared names. They simply breathed in each other’s remnants of breath.
She recalls the scent of her love’s mouth breezes to be like the sulfur salt spring water she always smelled in her dreams.
Now, she remains. There is nowhere left for her to visit besides the stories in her mind; that they cannot take from her.
Aimee Herman 