Rose Petals - Shlomit Ovadia

I washed my bed sheets today. They were more or less clean, but my blanket was sullied from love-making the night before. Or maybe it was two nights ago. Time passes differently when your heart is living in the delirium of a new romance.

And so I went downstairs to the basement to wash my sheets. I did it to get rid of those light strawberry stains, water colors on an easel, the remnants of my cycle sprinkled like rose petals across grey sheets. Feminine bits leaving the body to bloom when mixed with the open, sleepy air of my bedroom.

Just the other night, I had lain across those very same rose petals. My body, splayed out in its vulnerability, had been admired and explored with a painful tenderness, painted into an art piece.

I had simply looked back, unable to peel away from the experience that was happening before me.

My feelings come in waves and scare me. I want to run, but my body’s already abandoned me somewhere along the way, a gazelle in an open field, waiting for the wolf to pounce. It seems naïve, but what is life without the allure of an all-consuming force? What I have avoided at all costs until this moment is now a blue fire burning deep within my core.

Gentle eyes relaxed, faces flushed with passion, our bodies collide like puzzle pieces, generating new energy. It leaves me famished in a way no food can satiate. I need more time to decide, but it eludes me.

I hear the washer ding in completion from the basement down below. The stains become but a faded memory.

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Shlomit Ovadia earned her Bachelors of Arts in English Literature, and has since pursued writing professions of various degrees, including grants, content, and editorial. Her creative works have been published in literary journals, including Prometheus Dreaming and The Bangalore Review. She briefly served as an Op-Ed Writer for an international news site and currently works as a Contributing Writer for Memphis Health and Fitness Magazine. She is a budding writer with hopes to become published in the future, and continues to explore opportunities for authorship.