It feels like lava, rushing out to the surface and then enjoying a leisurely stroll in the fresh air.
It feels slimy, like the booger that runs down a four-year-olds nose and dangles over the highest point of their lip.
It feels like water and honey, flowing easily out at first but taking its painfully sweet time to stop.
And sometimes, it feels like blood.
It smells like a dead toad on a hot summer day in Mexico.
It smells like an old dog's breath.
It smells like the most earthly metal.
It smells acidic, kind of citric, strangely pleasant.
And sometimes, it smells like blood.
It looks like a newly finished watercolor painting of a cherry, the thin and fragile consistency.
It looks like a once perfect mud pie, the ideal amount of soil and water put together, but it has been stepped on over and over again by ignorant passerbyers.
It looks dark and flaky, like a love letter of a past lover being burned and flushed away.
But it will never look like blood again. Now, it just looks like the day I lost you.
-hanna guzman (2021)
