Litmus

Prose from SHS.

Photo by Drew Hays on Unsplash, edited by Slaidey Valheim.

I should have realized
he was a Litmus strip.

I dip,
Dip,
Dipped;

Wrote every result.
Catalogued them and wore them.

People looked at the flimsy tab wrapped around my ring finger and told me,
“That’s not the right color.”

And I smiled harder every time, replying,
“I know.
But it’s my favorite color;”
ignoring the acid levels
for the aesthetic of love.

Thanks for reading! If you like my style of prose, please make sure you follow the Bits & Bones publication, where I’ll be dropping short speculative non-fiction Mondays and Wednesdays!

This excerpt is one of many that I’ll be posting to Medium from the collection Strangling Heartstrings (a memoir in prose).

If you’d like to get your hands on a copy (featuring more stories exclusive to the ebook) you can get it on Amazon or download it from my Patreon (Skull+ tier, along with many other creative goodies).