Winter 2021 | Occasus | Issue 11.1
Ribcage to Flowerpot:
“slow down,” my mother called
it was a warning like thunder after lightning i was already tumbling magnificently through the tall grass down towards the stream fingers of moss and earth debated whether they should hand me back then the echo of my laugh off hills that hunched like shoulders mom had said something obvious like “it wouldn’t have been so funny had you broken a bone” “you move too slow,” i whined as my younger brother arrived his tears sucked out like breath in a riptide just another hiccup in the digestive churn of the stream turning rock to sand his face cast in shadow the trees above us changing colour whispering, “goodbye, it’s time for us to leave” the apple he ate, falling to the ground filled with mildew “this looks like a place out of a fairy tale,” he observed “if it’s like a fairy tale, what’s there to be afraid of?” i questioned “at school, i found a book of the real fairy tales and in those ones everyone dies and it’s sad” our mother’s cheeks pulled back her smile soft like dandelions swaying in the breeze but when we reached out to grab her she scattered pollen which would settle elsewhere out of reach “that’s not true” “it is too,” he demanded and soon our bodies sank into the dirt bones scattered in the stream like shells ribcage to flowerpot human to fertilizer |
Jenifer Adamou is in her 4th year of undergraduate studies at the University of Western Ontario, pursuing an English Literature major with a double minor in creative writing and history. Her main areas of study include the romantic poets and the existentialist movement in literature. Jenifer plans to continue her education at the University of Toronto, earning a Master of Fine Arts, and one day hopes to write and publish her own novel.