When the girl leaves by Rachel Hsu — The Stonefence Review

There’s this saying that goes:
If you say a hurtful thing enough times,
the pain will soften into nothing
If you spell it out enough times,
the letters will bleed into empty spaces and disappear
If you think about it enough times,
the thoughts will shoot themselves into oblivion
and the only thing you will have to do in the end
is bury them.

There’s this question that goes:
Why do things have to be like this?
Why do I have to be this way and
more importantly
why do you have to have a problem with it?
Why am I the one soaking up puddles
when I can’t even see the water on the floor?
Why is the floor wet to begin with?

We swim as we drink: with our bodies,
We breathe as we sleep: without agency,
We speak as we think: disagreeing,
and so there’s this girl that goes.

When the girl leaves, she is towel-dried, knowing
only that the color green means exit.
Her heart beats too fast for her to stay asleep,
which is to say her mind thinks too quickly
for her to explain herself with just words.
Her mouth is a handcuff, and her sighs have swallowed the key.
And so she turns to her body,
defers in hopes of hearing something new.
Her body just says to leave.

And there’s this girl that goes:
And there’s this girl that goes.

But when the girl leaves, she is still damp, shivering,
water singing between each strand of green
interwoven like baskets, weighing her down all the same—
you can’t prove that they’re tears if it’s raining.

And, still, she’s not ready to dry off. It’s warm outside,
but she likes the winter-wash of water, though it
seeps into her bones and melts her from the inside.
There’s this saying that goes:
Water beats fire.
There’s this saying that goes:
Stamp the fire out before it gets so large it swallows you.
There’s this saying that goes:
Drink your water, girl, drink your water.

The last question she asks herself before she dips back into the sea,
sun burning and bleeding to the side:
Why can’t people just let others be happy?

And there’s this girl that goes:
And there’s this girl that goes.