Grito
By Sam Moe
I am ready to feel the earth. Though I am forced into hunting with a father I didn’t ask for, there’s truly nothing left for me to do. You disappeared into a woman born in a lake. She prefers honeysuckles and buckwheat in her windowsill and doesn’t mind when you tug her hair back. I was once your loyal hound. Wherever you went, regardless of the length of the knife in your hand, I trailed behind with my tongue at the ready. Why did you take me to the woods to begin with? Cones and deep green pines, baskets of pepper herons, skeletal jays, red bones. Come here, my love. Come home. Right before you left for the Atlantic, we talked about all the things you did with her. When you mentioned the trout, forgive me for laughing; I had stolen a true story from you many months ago, when your guard was down and you wanted to pass me off to another man. We can’t fix each other. You found me in a reservoir of grief and stayed; despite all the things I did. Will you ever return to hear the things I have to say to you? Who am I kidding. Father knows you’re gone for good. He drags my carcass through the sun-dappled oaks. My legs leave a drag path, and the dirt knows your name. The mushrooms have collected evidence you were once mine, but only for the briefest of seconds before we beat our hearts to death with hammers. Can you save me? The last time I saw you, you wore a navy coat printed with small red flowers. You sat right next to me and held my bleeding hands in yours. You once said you loved me. Soon after, she showed you an empty corner of your heart and took root, like all good lovers do. Did I ever truly tell you how I feel? Listen closely as I relay the information to you. As I speak, I turn from dog to wolf to woman again. The night before, I’d given the secret away to a bog witch. Rather than keeping me safe, she mailed you one of my veins. I heard the two of you laughing from halfway across the county. How silly you must have thought I was. You were falling in love, falling into lakes of rainbow fish, memories like oil slicks populating your mind, I bet she gets your best stories, I dug my heels, but you didn’t stop to wait for me. Earlier, an ancient owl asked why I still bothered. I had to explain to her how a man took me to the river and kissed your name out of my mouth. He now knows all there is to know about salt. Perhaps I should stop stringing together my feelings across so many forests, into the beds of others, nestled in your laugh when you asked why I hurt myself the way I did and I was forced again to lie. Obsessed as I am with the lilacs and clover, bluebells and dandelion fluff, the past has me cuffed to a tree. The daughter I once thought I was decays on the wrong persons lap. Will you ever leave my mind as I press my mouth into a stranger’s. Can I forget the shape of your teeth. Can I ever lay back with my eyes closed and not imagine what you might think of my ribcage, how you’re probably undressing her and she’s got so many strings on my coat, her laugh isn’t obnoxious and she has no self-harm scars, she’s what you’ve always wanted, a woman with a mind that is a field in night time and not a deeply spiraled shell. I thought you were patient. I thought you’d wait for me. I’m not surprised she’s got your life and your thrill. Got me another and he’s stubborn, impatient. I just wish you’d kept your word. Instead, you take her hand and go for a walk. There are willow tendrils like leashes and wisteria that smells like my perfume. I died when you accidentally touched me. We will never see each other again, but God I will miss how your hair turned to honey in the early morning sun.
Sam Moe is the winner of the Barbara DiBernard Prize for her third short story collection, forthcoming from Zero Street Press (University of Nebraska) in 2027. She has attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Longleaf Writer’s Conference, and the Key West Literary Seminar. She has also received residencies at VCCA, The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, and Château d’Orquevaux. She is currently querying an Ecuadorian Gothic novel.
Follow Sam on Instagram, X, Bluesky and Threads: @SamAnneMoe
Photographer credit: Adelynn Brantley
