You crinkle at my touch as your brothers and sisters crunch underfoot. Your veins run dry; your skin stretched taught across them like fabric pulled over harp strings. With those shriveled veins protruding, I almost can’t decide if you look angry or sad. Maybe you just look dead. Anaemic. Exsanguinated.
I hold you to my nose and sniff. You smell brown. Like rot and age and decay. I imagine how you once might’ve smelled. Green: supple, fresh, sweet. Yellow: bright, sour, happy. Orange: sharp, bittersweet, bold. Red: hot, rich, crisp. Now, all that tickles my nose is atrophy.
I twirl you between my fingers and imagine what you might’ve sounded like rustled by an October breeze, nature’s windchimes. I imagine you shivering under December’s snow, cloaked in a gossamer layer of sparkling frost. I imagine how you felt when you fell. The lightness after dropping a heavy burden, the relief in your fingers after finally letting go, the melancholy comfort of giving up, of surrender. Then, the impact of your back against the pavement, delicate skin torn by gravel, the air fleeing from your lungs.
I wince and lay the leaf gently to rest among its kin.
As published in the Spring 2020 Issue of Stillpoint Literary Magazine
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