[thisislife]

I can still remember a time before the taste of iron started weeping through the boards of my house. It’s quiet; still. I remember how the sun used to dapple through the windows in the morning, how I’d shy away from its molten skin. Leprosy. I cannot recall if it can be caught in an instant, like a butterfly, but I’d heard stories, and so I kept my distance. Still, I remember how slightly the leaves trembled on the maple out back, newborn quivering shiver-sent winds trickling through its fingers. I remember how the porch sometimes smelled of rain. I remember the sputter in the shower.

But then there was the hint of rust and must and mold shaking its ancient and mossy head like some aged oak peering out through glaucoma-glazed eyes. Its breath smelled like forget. Its hair, strawberries. Its tongue was mottled and stained. Its teeth were splinters. And it smiled, and smiled while it leaked its lacquer-tears into the morning. In the back of my mind there was no longer a silence, but a low murmur of a rustled handkerchief brushing away the daubs of rust. And the twitch of the trees tasted something of fear. Windless quivers and weeping iron winding themselves through my house.