The Fawn

By Evelyn Rose (@evelyn.rose.writes)

And there he sleeps, deep in the ugly underbelly.

It is warm and wet. We all began here. Don’t you recall the shadows on the wall,

the muffled sound of your mother’s voice?

The shadows begin to shift. Headfirst, he is born.

It is late spring, and the horizon nurses the moon. The dewy corners of his eyes

glisten; a fawn blinking into his first dawn. He learns the sweet fragrance of

grass, the morning song of the honeyeater.

And perhaps I give the sight too much poetry.

He lies in a small brown heap in the grass. He is sticky from his mother’s

womb, heavy with it. Still tethered to her by that ugly cord, she stoops to lick

him clean. By some miracle, he finds his feet, takes his first shivering step-- but

his knees buckle so easily beneath the gravity of this strange new world,

And perhaps a hungry mouth will find him soon.

That bare stretch of tawny coloured neck beats warm with blood, perfectly soft

for the teeth to sink into.

But for now, the honeyeater sings, and the grass smells sweet. He is a fragile,

clumsy little thing, but he is alive all the same.

And isn’t life so unserious after all?

Evelyn Rose is a 19 year old girl from a small town in Australia. She aspires to one day become an author who inspires girls everywhere.