Christina Mrozik: She Loves Me

'I used to hide. I'd sink to my ankles and disappear beneath the coneflowers and Queen Anne's lace, the soft hummocks of grass pushing against my back. Time stretched above me as wide as a cumulus cloud—slow, quiet, a respite from the dark volume indoors.

The roly-poly closes to touch. The clam too. Sometimes I would find purple Wartybacks in the river mud, forced open by the busy maws of raccoons. It felt like treasure to find that purple—rare and beautiful—but I always wondered: if the clam were still alive, I'd never know the color of its insides, of the secrets it kept hidden. Do we have to be broken to be known?

I'd braid the grasses. I'd braid the stems, too. I wanted to know how everything fit together, and where I belonged amongst them. I wanted to braid myself into the flower crown, into the daisy's divination of being loved—a prayer to grow taller and kinder, and to keep my common heart unplucked. At eight, I knew this.'