Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
That she tells me she got a tramp stamp of Mulder’s face
She stands up fast, flipping up her shirt to reveal
what her low rise jeans can’t hide
The art is pretty realistic
I laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh
[this never happened]
Instead, her first tattoo is of a butterfly
We sit in the library as I inspect it
She got it during spring break
It flies just above the waistband of her jeans
Right on the small of her back
The lines are fading like a scab
Beginning to fall away, the ink a little patchy
She moves away for college that summer
I see her a year later
Me in a tank top and jeans
Her, still wearing her long sleeves in July heat
Passing a blunt back and forth
Behind the little hill
At the park
I’d come to visit
After she moved back home
We would talk a lot about our dreams
How they always seemed so far beyond our reach
She’d scoff and say “You’re not like me”
butterfly earrings swinging, as she says this
Like her tattoo, the paint is faded and chipped
I remember her endless phone calls on halloween
And not picking up because of class, and homework
The next morning, the Colorado Springs police department calls me
Says her body was found by this hill
Next to a tree right off the main road
I know this place well
they tell me that
She was found with
Her wrists slit
Fire ants crawling out of her wounds
The butterfly tattoo exposed
[this never happened]
Instead the hospital calls me that night
just as I’m trying to return her missed calls
Telling me she had cut herself
But called the cops just in time
To be saved
When they tell me I can speak to her for ten minutes
She apologizes
but jokes that the hill is hers
She's bled on it after all
Zora Satchell is a 24 year old Black queer poet who writes about mental illness, family, and friendship. She believes that poetry creates space to explore and heal from trauma as well as allow us to imagine new worlds. She is a member of the Estuary Collective and holds a degree in Ethnic Studies from Colorado State University. She also serves as a reader for Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review.When she is not writing she is obsessively consuming pop culture. She loves good dance music and watching movies. You can find her on twitter @thecasualrevolt where she lets her typos run wild.