Wet Earth

by Fatima Jafar

You creep into the corners of my evenings like wet earth,

Dragging your half-baked crumbling torso across me like wet earth,

I lay my head onto your thick August rain and fall asleep—

I find your dirt underneath my fingernails in the morning, this wet earth,

I stir you into my tea, tasting carsickness and yesterday’s ash,

Slip my feet into boots made heavy with your wet earth,

I mix paint all day trying to find my best friend’s favourite song,

The red and orange tumble over each other, making wet earth,

I bleach my hair to smell summer ten years ago,

But the chemicals don’t work, they dissolve in the wet earth,

I crack an egg hoping a city will pour out of it,

But the soft yellow that jumps out only tastes like wet earth.

I say my name, Fatima, and the letters have already been touched by my brother,

Birds run across the evening sky, looking down at me as they spell out ‘wet earth’.

Fatima Jafar is from Karachi, and is currently in her last year of university studying Comparative Literature. She likes to draw and take photographs of the people she loves. She writes poetry.

visual by rubaab mohammad.