It Stayed In The Wash Forever 2023
Made from scraps and repurposed stuff
The space in the yard between our houses was small enough that we shared a washing line and their kitchen was so close to ours that it felt like the same room sometimes.
I had seen Alice wringing it out and then leaving it to dry that night on the line
That was when I tried it on.
But the problem was I couldn’t take it off, I felt too at home in it.
Ma said we’ll take it off to wash it and put it back on the line.
But she never did that.
It went into a bucket and it never came out.
One day, I went back outside to the yard to look in the bucket as I did every day but the dress wasn’t there anymore. It was just dirty water
I thought about where it had gone and the journey it was on and what that looked like.
Ma said it wasn’t much to look at but it wasn’t about that, it was how it felt.
I became obsessed with where the dress could have gone and what life it was living now.
Did it remember me?
Had it been taken or had it simply transformed?
Only the bucket knew.
As soon as the knocker upper tapped on my window the next morning I went back down to check again
When I stirred the water with my hand i saw the dress spinning and gliding away into a life of its own
This was the life they were born into but they were sliding away, pirouetting into potential.
Far away from judgement.
Into the life of a dress.
If it could talk, what would it say?
Would it be confident or would it be shy?
I know it wouldn’t stay here,…. who would?