The warmth of sun scorched wet earth on my feet, my toes digging into the comfort that the warmth provides is something I will never forget. It always felt like a cocoon, a safe place, a womb to hide away from the world but it was just my feet not my whole body, not my eyes, not my ears or my lips.
I remember the scent of freshly cut grass; like the rainy season is about to start and the earth wet with anticipation for the coming of seeds. The sexual tension catches every follicle on my skin as I caressed the grass back then, a stalk on my teeth, grass juice in my throat and my eyes surveying the parts of the sky that I owned.
The asphalt always glittered in the afternoon sunlight like stars in a velvet sky but unlike the distant vastness of space, my body could roll on the rough face of my asphalt street. My skin sucked all the heat from the road with the hunger of a body used to the cold darkness of lonely nights. I always hugged the road and sipped some of the heat and I would feel like I am a part of something immense, something useful, something needed.
The scent of flowers will always escape me; their scent do not give me pleasure but their colours are a delight. I would watch the wind sway their tender branches holding delicate petals and I would wonder what it would feel like to be beautiful and to know the value of beauty.
One day, I filled the bathtub to the brim and I entered it naked. I laid at the bottom and held my breath. I opened my eyes and watched the world from under the water. This is what fishes see when they go about their daily activities, I thought to myself. I can’t swim and I have never bothered to learn, so I just laid there until the bubbles stopped and my reserve of air ran out. Intruding on my contemplation of the world beneath my sea, was the thought; dying is easy. I rose from the bathtub leaving a wake like an Olympian God then I pulled the plug and let the hungry gullet of the drain suck everything away.
When I climbed the guava tree that stood like a sentinel before the entrance to our home, I would watch out for fire ants; their red skin, a warning to stay away from their wicked pincers. I would anchor my legs to the smooth bark of sturdy branches as I reached for the sweet juicy fruit that hung ripe from tender stalks and hid among green leaves.
At the bottom of the tree, there was always brown shrivelled leaves that crackled underfoot when we walked under the tree, telling stories of our daring, of our strength, of our faith.
Somehow time has slipped by me like a fast, fast car. I try to hold on to scraps of time behind the face of the present but my hands are slippery with the heaviness of getting a job, taking care of kids, dealing with health issues and watching the sun go down on the world. If only I could go back to that asphalt road or that warm wet earth or that tree; if only.
