In Dedication To Summer Rain And The Smell Of Petrichor

my lungs.

they are too small for my body.

they have not the mass to handle each shuddering breath, each desperate gasp that begs “please, please, let me express something”

my body.

it is too small for my feelings.

it snaps and groans and stretches to try to accommodate the maelstrom within my chest, to no avail, so the scream claws its way up my throat and out my mouth, hurling insult and injury towards anyone nearby.

and I stand in the aftermath,

in the rubble,

and wonder what I have become.

one of these days,

you will ask me to hold you,

and I will crush you in my hands.

not through any ill intent,

but out of never learning to love

and never learning the art of being gentle

dear god,

i have grown since we last spoke, but i have not forgotten. i will never forget.

the silence will be etched on the canvas of my memory for all of eternity

your world, this world, that ebbs and flows so beautifully

the passage of time is a rich work of art that so few understand

and as it spins, the things that die create new life

flowers grow among the bones and

leaves sprout from the ashes and

i am still here.

i wish to die like a star, glowing and gleaming and destructively beautiful.

something is rotting.

the smell pervades the house, wafting through the halls, seeping under the doorframes.

it’s subtle at first. easy to ignore. i turn on a fan and soon enough I’ve gone noseblind.

it’s been three days. I found a little mouse dead on the floor. it’s small. too small.

the smell gets worse. the fan is on all the time now. I put perfume under my nose to block it out. eventually, I grow numb.

a week. there is no escaping it. I have looked everywhere. it has stained all my clothes. It is here, somewhere, the source of it.

it has been months. I cannot leave. I am weak. it affects me constantly.

something is rotting.

it is me. it has always been me.

I stood dead at a grave that was not mine

a friend of a friend long since gone, though

killing me only now.

grief is as death,

is as life,

is as humanity.

our home should have colours and flowers. daisy sims hilditch / christine atkins / stephen darbishire / marie-louise roosevelt pierrepont

fireflies honestly make me cry a little. out of gratitude and wonder. thank goodness we live in a world with bioluminescence. thank goodness we live in a world where it can fly.

I am not a girl,

but rather a boy in the way

that I am burdened a daughter.

disappointingly so.

I think I shall never forget the first time

seeing my mother’s new name

on a package with mine

I think she is getting better.

so am I.