Cicadas sleep in circles under our weak tree that Lulu clips angry thoughts off of every Wednesday. When is day gonna look like it used to? It's only been a month since we had purple and orange and good, clear blue. Now, gray. The cicadas will be awake and chirping tomorrow.

At night, I get out. I slip to Lulu's little patch of grass in darkness. Since she cuts the hair off her head, it grows out of the ground, green and wet. Cut hair looks like pepper on her white head.

what do you wanna do with it

i don't care i don't know

who's gonna love it more than me

i don't care i don't know

you can't raise it on a little patch of grass

it doesn't no it doesn't have to

whose

She told me never to eat the berries there, but when I'm hungry she has bread, jam, and juice ready. She makes five dollars from Ms. Aldon, ten dollars from Mr. Brent, ten dollars from Mrs. Endly, five dollars from Mother, and ten from Mr. Roberts. Forty dollars a week for little chores and she can buy bread, jam, and juice for us.

The families on our street already know something is wrong. She can hide her stomach but she can't hide that her parents are gone. Her house is too loud now; she doesn't want to be there alone. Each of the families knows something is wrong with her, but they don't know what, so they still pay her little dollars for bread, jam, and juice.

The air is heavy, wet, and yellow. Mother sits at our pink windows and cries. Her water is ripping holes in the wall.

And today Lulu said she wants it gone and gone.

whose

i don't care i don't know

you don't even know whose and you want it gone

i've had enough i've had enough of it

but i can help you take care of it i want to help you take care of it

it isn't yours and it never will be

She knows that voices would be wild if she went into town to have the whole thing done by doctors, so the next day we go out far past the farms surrounding the town. After her little patch of grass, there are berries, then corn, then wheat, then grass and grass for hours. Blue sky is ruptured by white down for miles. We keep walking together, talking about the little bugs we pass that break the ground and scatter. We walk to the shrieks of cicadas finally free of the soil. The air is light and filled with screams.

We walk until we reach the cliffs. Foam clips rock walls below us, in time with a pounding in my head. Lulu wears white. "We have to sleep here tonight, they said it takes a full day to go through" she says. She opens her backpack and brings out a small blue jar filled with red oil. White flakes, which she tells me are chopped mandrake, float in it. A small wooden spoon hangs off the side of the jar, tied down with yarn. "Just a day, and it'll flush out of me. It'll all be done then."

She spoons the oil little by little into her mouth. It rains all night.

If he was here with me, no one would find us. The night would grow long and he would know everything I have ever wanted from him and from the soil under my back. The bugs would stop crawling, stop screeching. I have always needed him.

But Mother would never have that. She said never ever ever. No, no, no son of mine.

I run like hell. There is grass and grass, wheat, corn, berries, grass, and darkness when I reach the gray of our town. I can see Mother from the end of the street. I walk into my house to find her gripping the walls, ripping through plaster. She beats me red and purple. She just wanted me home.

For comfort, I drop radishes into a milk-filled bowl and watch them spin. Three days later, Lulu knocks on our door. Mother lets her in and shows her to my room. "Have you just sat here with that milk and radishes?" she says. I can tell she has not slept since the cliffs and her clothing is still stained red.

"Drink it."

"Why should I?"

"You didn't let me give milk to it. It has to go to someone."

When she starts to sip at it, she pauses and kisses me on the forehead. White drips down my face and to my neck.