July Seventeenth

Artwork Mind, Body and Soul by Olivia Rose Words Jordan White

The rain came and all I felt for days was this haze. The diminishing of my backbone, broken wings in the sink, the dog - barking mad - at midnight, and the shy moth on your shoulder.

It never settles on the lampshade, it distills itself around it for hours. Humms and heaves until it hasn’t the energy to exist, flailing about. It falls to the floor but the sun rises. It always rises.

I listened. From your olive couch, I placed an ear on the window to see if I could decipher the fog through soundwaves. Petrichor is more so a place in my heart than a feeling.

Something may have tapped in the night, silently, perhaps on the glass (or my ribcage), but I have a tendency to romanticise the passing of time like this. It landed, eventually. Like something death was made for.

The plates piled up for days and the heater hummed, I heave myself into the sink. My stomach, the running of water, a hand on the wall. The dog settles, rests slightly. I sit in the shower, curl up on the lounge, and wait for rain.