Mama Said Rainwater's Good for Your Hair

By Emily Bauer

We’re 18 and 20, unbound,

unfettered, gilded cages

in the distance a mere mirage,

the topography of our friendship

alien terrain for us both.

I’ve crash-landed on this foreign soil,

but you were here before me,

you pick me up and claim that I’m yours,

we curl into the softness of each other,

two vines twining as one.

We’re 19 and 21, still wild as untouched earth,

you shake me awake at the witching hour,

drive us until the night sky is all we can see,

far from the city lights,

we wait for the lunar eclipse to begin.

You’re fearless and full of wonder,

you’ve taught me a new language,

one in which there are no rules,

no perfect way of speaking it, yet

the unspoken fills the spaces between.

We’re 20 and 22, watching the dark clouds roll in,

they cloak the summer-lush land in shadows,

the air holds a current, warns of the power to come,

distant thunder rumbling like an angry god,

the world before us vanishes with the rain.

In the window’s reflection, I watch as you stand,

slowly moving backwards,

I catch your sly smile, your bright eyes,

the wildness in you unspools,

spilling into the room, lying between us.

You stop beyond the bedroom door,

waiting for me to rise and rise I will,

as you cannot separate that which is soldered,

and one does not go without the other,

tilting your head, your voice rings clear:

Mama said rainwater’s good for your hair.

You comin’ or what?

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Emily is a recent graduate of Grand View University. She's an overcaffeinated bookworm that loves to travel and romanticize life. Her work has been previously published in the online magazine "Sixfold", as well as the GVU chapbook "Bifrost."