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