• A✶E •

Ask anyone.. I was the little girl who lived in the clouds. I owned my own kingdom there. I was 'Dreamboat Annie'. Always dancing in my own little dreams in love with the idea of Romancing the World. This brilliant glowing force; a spirit you couldn't kill.

And one day ... I fell. The tumble was harrowing. It punched through every strength I owned with heckling ease. A tedious chiseling. And landing again, another push. Another hand around my neck. Another chisel. Not such an easy undertaking at first; but once broken, the rest just sort of crumbled with defeat. I always thought my form to be stronger than this. Unattainable to start, and even less out of reach from these devious tyrants. How wrong I was. I could not see despite my eyes. & what was pleasant warmth then, left me screaming and wincing for days to follow. Ah, The trickery of Sunlit Days.

They thought they'd won. They thought they killed me. I believed them too. And with immaculate pride they walked across my broken pieces. Those shards of my soul... Spread out across the darkness that now engulfed everything around me.

What was left? There is but a speck of light. So tiny. You can't even tell there's a spark. Oh, look. Another.... And another. They're everywhere! Infinitely scattered everywhere within this darkness. I'll never be able to gather them all together again. Such an emptying despair.

What could I ever do with this mess? My desolated kingdom, shrouded in darkness and a million pathetic lights.

Who would ever want me now? Who could ever look at me in wonder again? What hands would want to be inclined to embrace this. This wreckage. Such a heaviness in holding a universe.

But here, there are These days. And within these current hours twirling with sun and moon, I feel weightless. The fluid of clouds circling my ankles as I find myself dancing once again. How I have missed this movement. This romance. And now above me.. Surrounding me... All about me.. Above and beneath my clouds. There is my beloved darkness. And those tiny shards of light that flicker in the night sky.

My dreams, Awake.

©A.Elizabeth. •