Lizzy Burnam 🐞

I don't smell it so much as feel it in my nose—a sharpness like the early stages of a sneeze, but a welcome one, catharsis. Dust congeals into a thick red clay. You say you want to throw yourself away. Start fresh. Grow stronger roots this time, somewhere the rain over-loves the land until the land is evergreen. I say, look how the pink quartz and the sunlight dance. Listen. When Spring is born, she sings a melody—the same song here as anywhere, a song that makes the moon blush. Yet still we run, deaf to all but our own unanchored heartbeat. They say the mountain was a woman, hardened by grief. Her name was Sandia, watermelon. Look. See this great rift of granite and limestone, and tell me you can't taste the fruit encased beneath.