Out of Reach

By Kat Craig

Broken glass is embedded in the loose dirt all around our gray house. We don’t have grass anymore. Our neighbors don’t either.

Hard rain unearths more shards—glittering green and brown bits—that I pretend are gemstones. I am a wealthy princess, dancing upon a wondrous bejeweled floor.

A thicket thrives across the street, thorny and dense, grown up around the base of a streetlight. White and yellow honeysuckle blooms there, the flowers just out of our reach.

At school, honeysuckle twines along the playground fence. We taste the sweet nectar, dropping spent blossoms on the soft emerald grass.