Breath

A sudden sharp breath intake.

It tasted like cold.

Crisp. Cutting. Careless.

Winter was short here, it lasted but weeks never months. She always felt a dutiful obligation by its arrival. Buy some cardigans that fit, some slippers that don’t smell like a fart and maybe a cute winterish outfit with some boots. Or don’t, just pull the dusty stuff out of the cupboards, sneeze, wash it all, try it all on then bag it all up and donate. Keep pieces you wish you’d given and give ones you wish you kept.

The kid has no clothes that fit, a winter outfit is a once worn piece for a growing lad. Even his summer shirts are bigger than hers now. Oh how she yearns for summer, when lightness fills her and the warmth makes it easier to breathe. The marigolds didn't bloom last year and it made her feel uneasy. For them to bloom she would have to dehead them and that rhymed with dead and (I don't mean to get all Dr. Zuess here) that filled her with dread. Dehead the marigolds and buy bigger clothes for the boy. Got it. It won’t be long until he is bigger than her and she might steal a shirt of his out of his washing to sleep with.

An exhale. A small laugh escaped with it.

Not without a bucket of bleach before she sniffs one of his rank shirts.

The cat was in her grill. The last breath in and out felt like eternity and now the cat. Just being a cat, twitching and itching and moving and making sounds that made her feel like she could fall into a corner of the room, and down further into the ground below that, maybe you can’t hear sounds if you are too far underground? Perhaps its like deep sea diving and the pressure affects you to a point where you just don’t hear sounds anymore. The sound is monotonous, maddening, motherfucking relentless.

The flick of a lighter is a sound she makes sense with. It sounds like about seven breaths of reprieve.