9:08

I found a ghost under the bed that looked like me as a child.
She was crying, fluid shining on her round face, holding a stuffed animal that had fallen apart while being washed in my past, her future. My childhood cat was curled near her soft stomach and I held my breath looking at his fur and when I reached towards him he growled and scratched my palm, trying to keep my skin away from the little ghost. I could smell the dirt of where he is buried in my parent’s yard. 

"Who are you?" she asked.
"I think I am you."
"Then why aren’t your eyes blue?"
"They changed color when I grew."

She stared at me, her long curly hair sea-waving over her shoulders.

"Are you a boy or a girl?"
"I don’t know."
"Eyes do not change color. Girls do not have yellow in their eyes."
"I think I became an animal after I watched an animal die."
"Where is your hair?"
"I wrapped it around my brain to keep it from breaking."
"Why aren’t your eyes blue?"
"They changed color when I grew."

I heard the snapping of her bones as they lengthened into my body and our cat chased the insects crawling out of his mouth while the noises of birds came from the morning and the lining of his stomach, which was slowly becoming grass. She screamed and I covered my ears while her face lengthened, her teeth falling on the hardwood floor, clacking like marbles. Her hair gathered around her fingers in circles and mice that came out of the cat’s ribs gathered it to build nests in the walls, where they died years ago. 

I looked at myself as I am now underneath my bed, the long arms and tattoos, wearing my lover’s ring. Her eyes were lighter, clearer, a resolute shade of blue.

I watched myself shake, the soft jaw trying to push from beneath the skin.

"There is someone on the mattress pretending to be me," she said. 
"How do I know who is who?"
"Her eyes are no longer blue."

I crawled closer to her so that she could recognize the lines of our face.

"They changed color when I grew."