on our last day of happiness she drove me to the Tennessee border
fists clenched on the wheel through the crowded interstate turns
before tumbling into the never-far-away fringes of nowhere, forest
breaking a fever in the mid-afternoon sun. she parks illegally, 
tugs down her sunglasses, and we wind into the humid heavy
jade and emerald shadows. it’s taking too long—surely we’re 
lost?—this was supposed to be a short hike—but we don’t really
mind, knowing that we are treading on the edge of time anyway. we walk 
from Tennessee to North Carolina to Tennessee and back again, these false 
fractal names for liminal places, falling deeper into plunging woods, asking her 
questions she never had the answers to. this is me, perpetually 
trying to mine something unmalleable from her silences. the falls
appear around the corner like a revelation: quartz water as clear as a dream
pooling around the jagged cliffs. we peel off layers, nearly screaming at 
the freeze around our ankles. she says it only gets better if you go 
straight in, and plunges. I find out that she’s kind of lying when I go
under too—it’s not that the cold becomes comfortable, it’s that the 
whole body goes numb. I suspect that she has more experience losing all
feeling than I do, anyway. we wade to the edge of wildflowers. a bright
blue butterfly lands on my fingers, and I for once practice gentleness. is this 
appalachia, saying goodbye? we both believe in omens, mostly of the dire
kind, so I don’t know what to make of sweeter magics. she says, I dare you 
to jump off the cliff into the pool. I tell her no and then I tell her yes, because
somehow I know that this is the last time we will ever be this version of ourselves. 
I climb the rock face behind her, fingernails digging into frayed granite, scraping
my knees in the ascent. she falls first, as always, surfacing with a gasp and
a wicked grin. I waver on the edge of the heights. I fall inward to the freeze 
and feel the aches explode across my skin. let’s do it again, she says. here we are 
worshiping on the vibrant altar of feeling, devotees to an ephemeral god, ragged and 
laughing, shiver down to the bone, collecting stones to remember us by. when we 
leave, it is because we must, because there is only so much time that you can steal
before life comes to collect. trodding up the hills again, the edges of her hair curling,
she says, I was surprised that you jumped in. spun-gold sun, tourmaline shadow,
the glacial feeling on my skin that I can’t quite shake. I don’t know how to answer
the question she didn’t ask. I say, maybe I was feeling brave. but I think: perhaps I am most iridescent on the edge of mourning—maybe euphoria is always a little bit 
painful. Appalachia spells ecstasy in the same breath that it grieves—so do we. and
this was how it all ended: my last bruised summer with her.

Megan Busbice is a poet and fiction writer currently living in Chicago. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as a Fulbright Grant recipient, and currently works in public policy. Megan’s work has appeared in the literary magazines Maudlin House, Door Is A Jar, Screen Door Review, Roi Fainéant, Rogue Agent, New Critique, Cellar Door, and Rainy Day.