Turns out there’s a difference between a halo and a crown, between one meant to love me and a nest of snake-dead eggs, between kingdoms of kelp weaving a dark sea and my head underwater, held there by a big sister’s hand. Different, but real, like a new dialect I hear but don't know, a gender I’m not, but wish to be, a region I flee to for the sake of a pregnant daughter or this town, without rain enough or homes enough to live in without giving my body day and night to an angry god. Different, but not my country, not my currency, not my sister. But green, this other world. So green, it aches. originally published in