Omen

The white flower is dying.
Eaten up by the white rabbit.
I go onto the street.
There are people at my heels. At my head.
The lights don’t make me smile I never smile I can’t smile.
I take out my blue coat. The one with brown buttons.
Like the coat you wore. With blue buttons.
I hold it to my face. It is soft. It still smells of me.
Of pink skies and marshmallow clouds.
It smells of home.
When the lights turn to dust I walk back.
Not to the doors. To the lift that takes us up and down.
Which crushes us.
I want to wrap up my blue coat.
Fold it gently.
Place it back in my bag.
But the bag stays behind the locked door. Two locked doors.
Consumed by the smell of dirty clothes open and spewing.
Stories rubbing off. Infecting me.
I want to seal my coat up.
Wrap it in the smell of home.
But I cannot get past the keys.
So I fold it. Hug it. Long for it to stay mine.
The white flower is dying.
My hands can’t catch the petals.
They turn brown.
Like crushed flowers we used to churn to perfume
When we were little girls.
The perfume has turned to poison.
Time is falling down.
The white rabbit plays the hand on the pocket watch.
Back one minute. forward. back.
The white flower is dying.
The white rabbit licks his lips.