The Salt of Leaving

The smell of wet iron and crushed gravel always pulls the breath from my lungs. It is a heavy, metallic scent, the kind that clings to the back of your throat like the taste of a copper coin held too long under the tongue. I remember the sensation of damp wool against my shoulders, the way the fabric grows thick and cold, pulling downward until your bones feel the ache of the storm. There is a specific rhythm to a goodbye—a frantic, uneven pulse that beats against the ribs, faster than the steady drip of water from a rusted roof. We think we are made of solid things, but in the moments when we must release someone, we are only water and salt, dissolving into the gray air. The body knows the weight of a departing hand long after the skin has cooled. Does the earth remember the shape of the feet that walk away from it, or does it simply wait for the next rain to wash the memory clean?

Shahnaz Parvin has captured this ache in her beautiful image titled Rainy Good Bye. It carries the exact, heavy dampness of a heart left standing on a platform. Can you feel the chill of that rain against your own skin?