Daphne

"It'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in."
-Kim Addonizio

She sat at a bus stop. Knees together, feet turned inward, dark hair dripping with the Baltimore rain. Her green dress clung to her skin like black moss on slender tree limbs. It was probably ruined. Several taxis stopped, their sticky black interiors beckoning. Tired of waiting, they each drove off in search of a better fare. She glanced up as each car baptized her with dirty street water. Waiting for the gray Chrysler she knew would eventually come. She clutched the hem of her dress twisting the edges into knots above her knees. She shouldn’t have left the house, she shouldn’t have worn that dress, and she certainly should have known never to go anywhere uninvited. Even if it is just a stupid party. Even if it is New Years Eve. The dress clung and strangled and sunk into her skin. Anyone who passed would not see a girl, wet and shivering, but a tree. Willowy and fragile and bent with the cold and the rain, covered in black moss.