How to catch the rainbow even if you’ve failed multiple times before

by Elena Pitsilidou


Multiple times I’d failed to catch
the rainbow, it’s true. But eventually,
the sky recognised my struggle and lent
a hand to its own star-dusty child
It all starts at murky dawns
when you slip between the duvet and
the night’s dream, which pushes to be remembered and when
the rain drops smell like espresso

Nobody warned you that when you see
the rainbow after the rain, you should not
call its name out loud but you should only
go on washing the dishes or choosing your outfit for the day
Then, you should observe the colours
like you observe your cat licking her paws
Is it red, yellow and green or is it the other way around?
Is it lick and stroke or stroke and lick?

At last, you realise the illusion of
perfectly cleaned paws and perfectly arranged colours
You only know that rainbows are there to remind you of
songs you listened on Sunday evenings
Only then you can whisper to the sky and
take a ride to the stars where
the rainbow awaits; not as a rainbow but
as a lovely mesh of stardust with everyone and everything you loved inside.



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Elena Pitsilidou is an English teacher and an emerging writer from Cyprus. Her work has appeared in print and online literary magazines such as Film Matters, We Said Go Travel and The Cabinet of Heed. One of her poems won the first prize of the poetry competition of the University of Cyprus in 2020 and another poem was included in an anthology published by Archytas publishing house in Greece in 2024.