—IT’S NOT SOMETHING THAT I SAY IN JEST

 

 

We sit in the rickety treehouse sharing a jar of your grandad’s clear. “This has bullets in it. I can feel them shooting stars around my soul.”

Tomorrow you will tell me about Mailman Fred, how he wears nothing beneath his pale blue shorts, how thin the air became when he showed you.

But for now, you giggle and gurgle, the alcohol dribbling down your chin like a leaky hose someone forgot to put away.