Breathe In, Breathe Out, and Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. Sunny

Shen

Five things you can see:

Tips of knees Yellow tile wall Shower curtains patterned with an orange so hideous, Mom let out a gasp when Dad brought them home Water, dyed an artificial blue an homage to that wonderful trip to the Bahamas, eons ago and remnants of the bath bomb that made it so, bobbing and swirling as it dissolves into nothing.

Four things you can feel:

Hard ceramic that cages in limbs, soft suds that bubble on skin

Overwhelming warmth, but not quite the disgusting sticky way that makes limbs fuse together and sweat pool on necks. Soapy seas slowly swallow whatever comes close, taking arms, shoulders, hair. Only stopping short of a face.

Three things you can hear:

Thud, as awkward elbows bump into walls. Plink, as the leaky faucet drip-drip-drips, each droplet consumed by the pool of blue. The light that is teetering on the cusp of life and death offers its buzz to the din, quietly pleading for someone to go and fix it.

Two things you can smell:

Lavender. Lavender from the shampoo, lavender from the body wash. Tainted lavender from the wilted lavender plant beside the sink, where it hasn’t seen water in two weeks, all working in harmony to overwhelm sensitive nostrils.

One thing you can taste:

Nothing, really eating dinner overtop of expensive textbooks and open projects just seemed sacrilegious. How long ago was lunch, anyways?

The water’s gone cold It’s time to get up

Whenever you pick a flower Ally Reed

Think what short time this seedling had to grow as it blew back and forth in the wind clutching at any available hold where it could settle and let water and air coax it to burst its soft shell sending tender shoots to reach towards the sun

Think how quickly it had to push roots into the ground before it was whisked away and lost in the wind or rain

Think how rapidly it must’ve unfolded its lush petals to draw in enough sun to survive Next time you pick that flower think how hard it grew

Grow Fonder

Becca Madsen

I think, I will be happier When there is an hour or two, Between me, And you.