love was a country we couldn't defend, thorn

[prayer]

For a time, it was the only word she knew – Prayer. And it had felt so important. She had felt important. But days bled into weeks which fashioned themselves into months and it had occurred to her that maybe she wasn’t so important at all. Her mother had loved her, certainly. Her strange mother who sometimes more resembled a serpent than a horse but who had told her how beautiful she was from the day she was born. And maybe she is. Or maybe she will be. Stark black and overtly feminine. But she is gangly now and sometimes uncoordinated and not always certain of herself or others. She has struck out on her own. It feels awkward, to be so firmly stuck between child and adult. She feels too old for the playground, or perhaps too mature, and too childish for the meadow. So she takes herself to the river and dips her feet into the water and the freezing temperature rips a breath of laughter out of her chest.  She shivers and grins down at the water as it crashes against her ankles. How desperately it wants to sweep her along with it and she has half a mind to let it, if only to see where it will take her. She is on the verge of taking a step deeper, surrendering herself to the pull of the current when she is startled by a sound behind her. As if caught, she scrambles backward away from the river’s edge and then turns to face the figure.  “Oh,” she stammers and fashions up another grin, something caught between surprise and relief, “I didn’t see you there.” p r a y e r

@[thorn]