Unfinished Story
The heavens brush by her fingertips
as she reaches for the sky
but her feet stay nailed to the ground
when she stretches past those pearly gates
catching a shooting star in one hand
while grabbing Orion’s belt with her left
to wrap around her waist
when she gets home.
Down she shrinks
until she is the size of a firefly
blinking on and off
to the beat of their hearts.
She smothers her light
as the demons emerge
from the depths of the burnt lake
and they search in the dark
for something to clamp
their steel traps around.
As she is finally found
she is pulled from all sides
by good and bad alike
and only at the break of the sun
when light pours out from two grinning halves
does the tugging on her spider web soul cease.
And the struggling plants fly by her window
as she makes her journey around the world
though it’s only around the block that she flies
for the umpteenth time
and as the clouds decend
to meet her feeble plane
she wishes the land beneath her
didn’t seem quite so far away.
She jumps out, parachute-less
and tries to run away
on those stepping stone puffs of perspiration
to meet her so-called destiny.
But as she is running she is sinking
and the hands she reaches for
only throw stones to build the wall
that she resides within
effectively putting blinders on all five sides.
All she sees are feet pounding air
and now she is jumping
red-tiled rooftop to red-tiled rooftop
a suburban myth in the making.
Sparrows swoop in to chat
sharing their piping hot tea and sympathy with her
but her appetite is destroyed
by the sight of the endless abyss
that stretches out before her
surrounded by the cliff
she now teeters on the edge of
one leg in the air, dancing gracefully
as she tries not to fall.
And as she blindly reaches all around
she realizes that no one is behind her
to grab her waist and save her
so she takes a baby step of faith
and finds the blackness holds.
Already she is walking quickly
so fast she doesn’t realize night is coming
until the stars put lights in her eyes
and the shadowed blue cloaks her shoulders.
But nails don’t pierce a nothing
so tonight she does without
her winking and twinkling accessories
and hopes to anything that’s listening
the demons can’t find her here.
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