Naomi Nemickas
Rainwater trickles down my face, curving at the flare in my nostrils, rivers pooling in my mouth. Sitting water. I swish it around my mouth as my spit grows thicker. Sifting through my teeth, thick strings form like delicate membranes of a cell. I stretch to the sky, running my nails across its rubber knobs. Tempting. My eyes let open, the world looks like a foggy window tonight.
My nightly shower runs beads down my back, ridding me of the day’s dirt. Illuminated only by candlelight, I see my body differently - see my world differently. Carefully, the flame taunts the bathroom. Glistening off the porcelain of the tiled floor, reflecting in the glass door of the shower, flickering along my body, curved and damp. I feel my cheeks flush as I splash hot water on my face, painfully cleansing. Water trickles through the waterways carved into my thighs, a hundred dead ends guiding its stagnant, tentative pass.
I dress my bed with linens I brought from home. Blue and white striped, cream-coloured sheets underneath. As I crawl into bed, half naked and shivering, I feel the hair on my legs move against the fibers of the linen. Delicately placed between the fabric, the body contorts to the existing curves of the mattress. Imprints of a former being who occupied its cotton flannel long before.
I want to go home but I cannot. To escape to a place of darkness, though the light penetrates my eyelids, shining a pink-yellow glow toward me. My eyes open once again, wandering over to the stacks of books I placed on my walnut floors too long ago. The sun glazes the room, sweet and pillowy, uniquely dawn.
Naomi Nemickas writes poetry, short fiction, and essays. She is the writing editor of a long-running school art and literary journal. Naomi also hosts the podcast Ukrainian(ish) which centers on exploring the relationship between war and identity. This is her first publication. She divides her time between Toronto, Canada, and Kyiv, Ukraine.