all of that wriggling life.
Freshly twelve, my best friend and I stole a butterfly net from a girl in another cabin and trapped a turtle under a pine tree.
She was facing the lake, which meant she had already laid her eggs, and she was fair game.
We brought her to the wild life center and put her in a plastic pool. We’d work on our cross stitches at the table across from her, give her a new name every day.
The first time I tried to hold her, I could feel her body moving inside her shell so I dropped her back in the water.
That summer, my bunk mate snuck her cellphone under her mattress and taught me to shave my legs, flick hairy cream off the razor into the grass.
I read a whole book series in a week, climbed trees in sun dresses, showered all of three times, covered my morning toast in cinnamon.
I remember that the purple flowers near the dining hall held sugar under their spiky petals, the way we’d slurp the ends, taste sweetness and upper lip sweat before dinner.
I remember every piece of me of me squirming eagerly under my skin, how it felt to have a grasp on all of that wriggling life.
