Perhaps

PERHAPS

ART 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.

Illustration by Katelyn Bernardo