You make bones out of sand, hot blood turns into glass. When flesh grows in, invited for the parts of the earth that keeps such secrets,

a trek through the desert will temper the bones. Like everything else, it starts out fragile.

It would have seemed poetic in a way, if it hadn't come from the little girl I was sitting

across from on the subway. It was actually disturbing, as a small, bright face looked at me as she spoke.

I looked at a mother or who I assumed was a mother anyway and expected something to be said.

She just looked down at a phone, scrolling with a thumb

intermittently. I looked left and right to see if any other people had heard and were as

off put as I was. But the same before subway car didn't carry another person that was paying attention to anything outside themselves.

Just me. Me and the little girl that spoke of glass and bones.

I opened my mouth but couldn't decide what to say, so I shut it again and pressed my lips

into a thin, polite smile.

I'd never been good with people, not strangers anyway, and that was under normal circumstances.

This didn't feel like normal circumstances.

The little girl smiled back and kicked her legs back and forth and she sat on a seat.

On ease spread through my body as I looked up away from the child

and tried to force my tense muscles to ease up, relax.

We passed an intersection at just the right speed for me to catch a glimpse down it.

I could see the tunnel of fluorescent lights and tracks going on and on out of sight.

It was gone in an instant.

I didn't know that there were places where the tracks crossed in the subway, but then again I had never ridden one until I moved not long ago.

I was still acclimating to public transport as my last home didn't have much to offer.

The image of the tunnel, an unexpected gaping hole in the wall stuck in my head.

...