By Ariel Smith
Perhaps a yowling wind will take me tonight, oh how I hope it does.
If only the wind was strong enough
to hold my sorrows.
I’d be lifted from earth as an angel, given to the clouds on a
golden platter: an offering. But even offerings are supposed
to be of the finest creation. So on the ground
my feet remain planted. But perhaps
the ground might want me, the earth and the layers of dirt
and rock below. Maybe I could crawl
with the worms, only surfacing when the powerful rains
come and flush me out.
When the earth is filled with
rain and sun and life;
only then I come back from the depths of the earth as a version
of life only just remade. How would it feel to be new? I imagine
jumping from bliss
to innocence, then back again. But no, the earth won’t have me
either, I am made of flesh, I will not sink. So above ground I must
stay. Perhaps the oceans will take me, and I will be washed
away: cleansed and bathed. Oh how I’d like to lose myself to it.
To feel so numb
to the touch that nothing could impact me, but I cannot float, my feet
are chained to the land. If I could only touch the water, give it
permission to take me, but I cannot. The water acts as though a
tsunami is on the rise and it recedes as I approach. I’m chasing
movement: I’m drowning on land, and
my sweet, sweet oxygen is lost to the sea. Perhaps no one will
have me. Perhaps, at the end of the day, it’s just me.
