Unseem

It’s a blackbird kind of day. The sun feels like limes and salt, and it makes me a little crazy. I want to be a prairie girl, or a shy artist in a seaside cottage, or a spoiled ‘princess’ in the south of France. I want to take a bite out of every apple in the orchard, and I wish for mountains of watermelons so I could eat until I make myself sick, with juice dripping down my cheeks onto linen shorts, even mixing with the dirt between my toes. I want to dash to the river and jump in fully clothed. I want to pop champagne in the grass and cloudwatch without scratching at the legs that carried me through the tall grasses and up the mountainside. I want to sing to that hill, and feel the trees hug me as I hug them. I want a bee sting and ice and ice pops. I want blackberries and blueberries and raspberries, and abandoned attics with dust and sunlight streaming through the windows. I want to throw hay at my companions, and I want to run until I collapse, and then get back up and keep running, without a look back. I want the fire and the stars to whisper the secrets of the universe to me, and I want to gift the Earth the salt of my tears. I wish to be known and unknown, a simple piece of the puzzle but also the most integral cog in the clock. I want the wind to whisper my name, and I want the birds to see me as one of them. God, I wish I was one of them. 

Published in the BC Stylus Spring 2023 Edition

Photo by derek braithwaite on Unsplash