TELL ME A BEAUTIFUL STORY

Tell me a beautiful story you said

One about the trees, the sky, an insect you saw, a frog, a poem, a smell, what you made for breakfast.

I smiled and tasted rainwater on the most beautiful day and promised that I would.

Squinting from the sun, I promised.

Tomorrow.

I plunge into the depths below and the ice chills my body. Darkness and loneliness. I kick and struggle and scream and burst through the surface.

I press a hand to my face and my fingers come back wet.

Laying in grass on the most beautiful day.

The grass bleeds on me. And I wrote a poem about it. About how grass can cut as a blade would. And how for once I didn’t hate myself but rather would sit down next to myself on a bench by the lake, and be quiet, listening to the waves.

Tomorrow.

I promised.

Leah Smith: I am an emerging writer on Cape Breton Island and have been writing for the past 4 years of my life. I am currently trying to have my work published to build up a rapport for experience and perhaps eventually, a collection of my own. Some of my work is currently undergoing publication with the magazine 'Blank Spaces' for the 2025 September review.