I keep day dreaming about this lake that I used to go to in Germany. I can't remember the name. I'd take the train through the middle of town and then away from it until something that looked like the sea sprang up all around me. And the reflection of the sky in the water would swallow the world and I thought that if I listened hard enough I'd figure out everything that I needed to know. Because just then in my life I was a really sad girl. I was a really broken girl. And I wanted the undersides of clouds to tell me how to be a woman. How to be a strong woman. And I'd get sunburned and listen to the prattle of German that I could just quite but not well enough understand. Like a music to raise up my soul. And it did. All of it. Somewhere between here and there, between Soln and Munchen and Berlin, and the International terminal at the Seattle-Tacoma airport. I swapped myself out for a newer version. I left death on the other side of the world. Whispered it into the forgiving underbelly of refracted clouds on water.

this was all i had