the monsoon city

The city has a smell in August that I cannot describe to anyone who hasn't been in it. Petrichor is the word people use but that's for dry earth and fresh rain and this is something older, something that has been accumulating since June through the drains and the parks and the wet road and the inside of autos — an overripe, warm smell, not unpleasant, just very present. I take the long way to the metro when it's not raining. Past the colony park where the grass has gone a green so saturated it looks fake. Past the house with the jasmine that has been blooming since July, impossible, too much to be real. The city in August is heavy and beautiful. The sky is low and grey and the light that comes through it is the same color as old silver. Everything is wet even when it hasn't rained. Your clothes know before you do that it's about to rain again. I have lived here long enough that August is mine.