genevieve

genevieve

the hospital where genevieve was born had filthy waiting room carpets, chairs the colour of the tender fleshiness of inside-skulls and smelt of pale wax candles, bodily fluids on a surgeon’s hands, mould edged petals and an underlying pale-pink cloy –

(this stifling candy scent was chemical; tears on a wastebin kleenex, kisses the mottled blue of prayers, hearing-but-not-listening. empty sunsets for the rest of your life-)

genevieve was bon on the wrong ward and the first breath she took was full of meat and morgue-cold. she was slippy-fish wriggly, a slimy peach thing with matted twists of coral-coloured hair and a tiny mouth like a shell. in the same second when genevieve took her first salty, shivery breath;
1.