Lizzy Burnam 🐞

A girl I used to know
had a high, soft voice, gentle 
as the yellow glow of a buttercup 
tucked under your chin.
We used to smoke weed
together and talk 
about our pain, echoes
of trauma bouncing 
from the mirror of my soul
to the mirror of hers 
and back again. I never felt
like a hurt child when we spoke, just
brave and perpetual 
like a redwood tree. 
I wanted to grow tall enough 
to shelter her from 
the storm inside her brain. 
Sometimes we just sat in her car
with the seats down and listened
to Lauren Hill and Erykah Badu, 
voices sweet as hers 
and lyrics about moving on
with faith and grace. 
She borrowed my book
of dense lyrical essays 
about the magic of speech 
and stones and the reciprocity 
between human life 
and wind, water, the world 
around us. She texted me 
a few days after she started it, 
said “I love this word: 
conviviality.” There are a few 
different interpretations 
of the word—general friendliness, 
good company and conversation
over a long meal, and
the more complex use of coexisting 
creatively and autonomously 
with people who are 
different from you, taking 
only what you need and nothing more, 
the antithesis of mass consumerism
and industrial productivity. 
I still wonder which definition
she preferred. I didn’t 
get that book back before I left. 
After college, she grew her hair long 
and started wearing 
rose quartz and moonstone 
on silver chains around her neck. 
Last I heard, she was working
as a social worker, fighting 
not to love the wards 
she couldn’t save. I told her 
I wanted to see her again
and never followed through.