VI. The Month of March by Sarah Malik

The Month of March By Sarah Malik

I.

How dreadful it’s been to rise with the darkness each morning for the last several months, the cold seeping through the large window of my severely unkempt room. How lazy I’ve been, too frostbitten inside and out to pick up the littering clothes on my floor, the empty bottles of water on my unused desk, and the books I’ve yet to organize onto the bookshelf on the far corner of my room that has become my closest friend for years now. It should take all but a few minutes of my too short days to fix the state of my room, and yet when I look around it, I realize there is no amount of bribery that can get me to make an effort.

Likewise, there is no amount of bribery that will inspire me to comb my hair and pass a lint roller over my clothes and tuck my shoes into the closet where they belong. There is nothing one can give me to rise early for my classes, rise early for my cup of coffee, rise early to make my days longer. What can I do about this now at 21 when I should have myself put together? What have I done about it for the past ten winters?

But today. Today, the sun appeared without cover and that putrid window of mine finally proved itself useful. The light was yellow and orange and slightly green from the hue of my curtains, the grass an odd shade but at least it wasn’t dead and brown and barren and so terribly hopeless. The wind decided to take a lengthy nap today so when I glanced outside as tentatively as one must these days, nature was nearly completely still and so was I. The only thing that began moving again was my heart, revived by the massive ball of fire in the sky and the moon that was still hastily trying to hide and the invisible clouds and the cars that drove by with the windows down.

The sweet scent of flowers and weeds rejuvenated me unlike any caffeinated drink, my lungs no longer frozen, now expanded into their full capacity. How lovely is it to take a full breath and be able to. How lovely is it to feel like living once more with the sun on my face, the occasional breeze sent my way from the cars. The warm air rushed through the strands of my washed, dried, and combed hair.

Four months of underground darkness and suffocating misery of will she or won’t she. Now, it’s come to this: one March morning, birds as loud as their little thawed bodies allow them to be, traffic on the distant road, and cold relief in my body.

II.

The rain has returned, and not the pleasant kind. It is the type that slaps viciously against the roof and compels me to throw another blanket over my head like a child because I feel like a child when it rains. It’s customary to suffer through the sharp rain and unforgiving winds before we can be rewarded with the ever-loving gentle breeze of spring. It’s a transition, they say. It’s cruel, I say.

Ahater of rain I’ve always been, yet if the scent that fills the air following a storm must contain this ingredient, then surely I can withstand this as I have for 21 years.

I hear it now and my heart beats fast with a type of anxiety that can only be fixed with the appearance of the yellow sun that makes me squint and tear up when I admire it for too long. I won’t even mind the few white clouds that hide the sun from me for several seconds. How I despise the rain. How I wish plants would thrive from a more gentle love and not this frightening, barbaric love. The wind added to the