Dichotomy of Birth
By Cassidy Petrus
It is a cold day in my room.
Somehow the window is open and the New England October air is nestling through the screen. It permeates the way a child learns to swim. Slowly acclimating itself to the drastic change in the world around them. One step at a time.
Under the covers we are shielded from the extortive nature of the cold. For no reason we are giggling and making ourselves too warm. Reluctantly, I burst out of the sheets and my head surfaces, hit by the cold like I'd just been born.
Soon she joins me. We stare at each other and giggle some more and maybe kiss. She looks the way I've always wanted a girl to look, whatever that is.
I want a warm day in your womb.
The sunlight glazes my eyes and I struggle against it, one lid half closed and the other tyrannically basking in the shade of her head. I wink between eyes as she shifts the position of her head. She laughs at my struggle. I laugh because she does.
Though he's been at it since before we woke up, I hear my father mowing the lawn for the first time. The whir of the blade mixes in with the distant sound of the radio until the two blend and neither is distinguishable, pleasant or irritating.
The smell of the freshly cut leaves wafts through the window screen with the cold. They bake us in an essence the way a tin holding a pumpkin pie reaps the benefits of being in the right place at the right time. The autumn smell briefly stops our giggling, the least we can do for the ashes of the fallen leaves.
It is a cold day in my room.
I wrestle among the sheets. Caught in my own restlessness. I dread the fact that I left the window open again and dread even more that I didn't at least put the shade down to keep the sun from waking me. The roar of lawnmowers lines the street and erupt upon my eardrums in rhythm. All I can feel is cold and deaf and blind and angry.
I roll over to greet you but only find more mattress. I would trade my soul to live forever in my dreams, I think. But then, I would trade my soul to have you here next to me, whoever you are. Or to never have dreams ever.
I want a warm day in your womb.
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