Full Bloom Books

The broken glass shards

Sliver, shiver through

And red rays of sunrise

Spill and bloom, creating,

Spiral into the black

Of her hair as

She runs shattered fingers

Through, the crystals cut

And kiss and she feels

Like the first day of spring—

Whatever the case they swallowed me whole and refused to spit me out. I was a dead soul eaten alive, and when I escaped the tight grasp of their mottled jaws, my body was aggravatingly whole, unscathed by the sharp teeth that my fears and wonderings had been snagged on. My eyelids were tugged open by a whining scream that refused to subside. The darkness continued to press at my eyes though, as insistent as if they’d never been opened. “

can

can you hear

me

can you hear me”

Icy shards of February air sliced open my dry lips as I tried to respond.

“I can hear

you

i

can”

The voice that escaped my lips was nothing more than a breath of vaporized air, the thin grey wheedling of candle smoke after the infantile flame had been brushed out.

It was not my voice. It was not the voice that had screamed in rage before blasting through palace doors. It was not the voice that had made kings tremble in their diamond thrones and gods flee to other kingdoms. Instead it was the voice I’d always feared, the voice of a last breath, of a dying wish. It was wretched and small.

I closed eyelids over bloodshot eyes.

I couldn’t bear to see what I had become.

Hands carried me away, and this new voice didn’t protest. These new hands didn’t wave and thrash in denial, these new eyes didn’t open. Unlike the old ones, they didn’t care to witness what was outside. What was outside the darkness. Because they already knew it was nothing. There was no light to be had in a world filled with candles. Only flames. Pathetically easy to extinguish.