Petrichor

Have you smelled the sorrow of the earth, after it weeps its scent into its cold, yielding soil? 

The mud on which I stand sinks softly, as the sorrow I drown in dampens the soil. Forgotten souls roam through the dense forest, moving the branches of trees. 

Weeping flowers fall to the ground — broken, brown, drowning in mud, their beauty lost in sorrows of abandonment. 

Men who forget they are made of mud, wander barefoot through graves of their own making, their hands clawing endlessly through the mud. 

Fools, the earth snarls through cracked skin and shattered bone, thinking they can outrun what birthed them —

tear me apart, curse the sky, but just as I am your cradle, so am I your coffin.

Foolish men, what will it take for you to realize you belong to the earth?

When your blood stains the river- when your skin crumbles into hungry soil- when your breath is ripped away by the wind—only then will your skin prickle with the fear of the unknown, death.

Sophie Hanna