Tomorrow Is the Longest Day of the Year

I’m sat on the kitchen counter when she tells me that she was my age when she learnt the night was a sieve through which the day shakes its way out, and I nod like I hadn’t discovered yet how this house would get bigger in fistfuls every time I visit, the ceiling always whispering the difference between the tool and the hand that holds it. I’ve never thought of light like that before, I hear myself say, but what I really mean is it’s a shame my hair’s been cut already. I press my thumbs into the iris of the sky outside my childhood bedroom window, as I wobble into sleep, wondering if the white walls covered in everything I tried so hard to love at seventeen are enough to turn tonight’s dreams into a bath without water. Tonight, I don’t believe in creation myths that begin with great floods. Tonight, Mum, I believe you, even if filling the bird feeder today only ends up feeding the cat tomorrow. It will be someone else’s job to point out that our eyes turn each other’s colour when we cry.