Green

by Michaella Thornton

Paul Blenkhorn

I am the cool fizz of prosecco sliding down one’s throat during the golden hour. The chartreuse velvet couch we make out on after eating Vietnamese take-out. The front door that needs a second coat and Frank Ocean’s hair color on the blond album. I am the moss cushioning her bare feet as she steals kisses from a clandestine lover on a shadowed stone staircase. I am the rosemary that brightens the fingerling potatoes. I am new growth — a tender off shoot, a bud, the palest grip of neon. I am not experienced, so you cannot burn me easily. I need time to season, to harden. I am the grasshopper you gently squeeze to spit tobacco at your kid sister. I am the dark forest of fabric that drapes the bare shoulders of Furini’s Santa Lucia in Galleria Spada. Her plucked eyes on a painted plate, forever searching. I am the woodsy trail your bike races through in southern Illinois, wind in your heart, sun warming your hair, doe and fawn hidden in the hills. I am humming “Fur Elise” in the shower by myself. I am what others see as jealousy or sickness. I am not a monster, though, I promise. When you step outside, you turn your face toward the sunset, the bats at dusk, instead of the trees, the grass. This used to upset me, until I understood that I am the foundation of everything. I am patina on copper, the natural weathering and oxidation of time. I am decay, and I will reclaim you and return you to the ancient lullaby of the fields.

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Michaella Thornton lives and writes in St. Louis, Missouri. Her writing has appeared in Bending Genres, Brevity, Complete Sentence, HAD, and the Southeast Review, among others. Kella holds her MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona, and she is grateful for the ongoing support of the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis.