Petrichor.
That electric bite before the first drop,
the smell arrives before the rain does.
It always has.
Sixteen. Shirt soaked. Feet lost in mud.
Someone’s laughter tangled into mine,
and her smile, the kind
I wouldn’t want on anyone else.
She never knew.
I’m not sure it mattered.
I’m not sure why it doesn’t anymore.
The ones with cameras stayed dry.
We didn’t notice.
We were being witnessed by something older,
the earth exhaling through actinomycetes,
decay and life indistinguishable
beneath our feet.
We ran because the garden let us.
Because no one had yet told our bodies
to be careful with themselves.
The smell finds me on an ordinary Tuesday;
dusty, mineral, merciless.
I am not the same.
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Somewhere between that garden and this pavement
he is still running; not toward anything, not away.
I watch him from here, third person, dry,
trying to remember when I learned
to keep things out.
The rain comes anyway.
He doesn’t stop.
I do.
