Life Through Moss by Maya Hawke

Abbey Griffin

Commentary on an album using lyrics and personal snapshots.

Backup Plan

I learned how to bike in Irma’s eye. Wind ripped our tree half out of the ground, the asphalt was a swimming black, and 1277 Ribbon Road’s mailbox took a chunk out of my left index knuckle.¹

Bloomed into Blue

My first Church dress was satin, with a bow that spanned the entire width of my five-year-old back. I told my grandma that I felt like Cinderella when I wore it. She said, “you’re too pretty for a Prince,” and cried when I came out.²

Hiatus

New Smyrna Beach has a shore of shells in a drip castle graveyard that wouldn’t recognize the thump of my bocce ball, punching holes in the sand, big enough for crabs, too small for girl hands.³

Sweet Tooth

In kindergarten, Sophia gave me a half used tube of cherry lip balm for my birthday, because, “you mean more than Jehovah.” I ate it.⁴

Crazy Kid (Ft. Will Graefe)

Lily walked me to the pink weeping cherry and said, “your constellation is beautiful” instead of “you deserve to be loved gently,” because they know I can stomach star talk.⁵

Luna Moth

Kate orders sushi online, and sometimes they don’t call her when they drop it off–just leave it sitting there, a wrinkly brown bag with frowning handles, edges creased sharply, stapled shut. Always shut.⁶

South Elroy

A writer I like called the Bible a “source of names,” and I think of Jacob, Nathan, me, growing into ladders, prophecies, peacemaking. Growing into Jake, Nate, Abbey, and I eat challah now. It’s sweet.⁷

Thérèse

I went to Christa McAuliffe Elementary, so space has always been on fire. At recess, jump-roping to the moon, we knew we’d never come back to chalky walkways between the portables. Not before the boom.⁸

Sticky Little Words

My noise cancelling headphones are always off. When they’re on, I can hear the un-loud, echoing beyond the music, filling the space between ears, past knowing.⁹

Over

I’m allergic to fire ants. Bites on my ankles cause swelling near my mouth, and breathing becomes a question, answerable only in the bottom of epsom salt baths. Nobody knows how to reteach embodied instinct, except the water, rising. Rising.¹⁰

Restless Moon

Brown eyes are amber are hazel are green are gray are full. I see it at night, with her. Or maybe it was one of the bunnies.¹¹

Driver 

My mom wore short skirts once, the same way Jacob wore plastic glitter heels with princesses on the toes. He looked best in Aurora.¹²

Mermaid Bar

That’s all there is. And it’s blue, like the ocean waves, powder rocks, watermelon seeds. Blue like a sunrise, which is to say not blue at all. Which is to say you thought the ocean was blue, didn’t you? Which is to say maybe one day it will be.¹³

1 “Your charger, your bike lock. Anything that’s not in your junk drawer.”
2  “As a babbling baby, they blessed her.”
3 “Let’s go on vacation, get soft and complacent.”
4 “When I’m sick or suffering, I’ll still call you about my big, sore sweet tooth.”
5 “You’ve been breaking your back bending down for me. It’s cool in the shade of your shadow, divine.”
6 “I came over here to be alone. Not to kill your things that fly.”
7 “It’d be a pity after all of that. Watch me come crawling back.”
8 “She thinks of him every so often, when she feels like a space cadet.”
9 “Writing’s too slow, talking’s too fast. Lately, real low lies at last.”
10 “I’m gonna have to be stronger than I wanted to be.”
11 “A weakness is believing in my imagination of yours.”
12 “I miss you like the soft spot at the top of my baby skull’s rose.”
13 “Some that fall don’t land in bubbles.”