"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
i'll run the risk
of being intimate with brokenness
I remember sleeping for what felt like eons, just waiting, wishing, the idea of my existence becoming more and more tangible with every moment that swept past me. That world, the first one, it crumbled as I grew stronger. Sometimes I felt bad, I felt guilt – though it was not a concept I really understood – that this bright warm place would die so that I might live. But it was impossible to resist the way my skin, if a concept can really have skin, hummed and my ears buzzed with so much offered energy. There was another world waiting for me, and there was new warmth and different bright, and love. Love for me.
I was special, they promised me.
It was a lie though, or a mistake, because when I got to this new place there was no one waiting for me. My eyes opened and the only thing staring back at me was a reflection. Mine. This scrawny girl with dirty brown eyes and skin like a murky blue ocean. I understood immediately why they hadn’t waited to meet me. Why they couldn’t, wouldn’t love me. But that was okay, I didn’t need to be special- I wanted more, I always would, but this would be enough. To be real, to be something more tangible than a thought, more literal than a concept.
A mistake of magic, bred by loneliness and depravity.
So many years later and I am still very much the same. The meadow is the only home I have ever known or needed, the changing crowds the only family I have ever deserved. There was no one special, no one who meant anything more to me than anyone else- except for one, one face that reappeared on the bodies of different strangers in even stranger dreams. I had met him years ago, just in passing, he was black like the night with eyes as sad and orange as a harvest moon. I hadn’t known him, but I think he knew me. I could see it in his face, that dangerous flicker of recognition, like he was seeing a ghost that never should have existed. It might have made sense for me to stop and ask him why, but the guilt in his face, the suspicion left like a stain, it scared me. I never saw him again, and I regret that now, my fear. I regret the loneliness too, just a little.
And now, as I stand at the edge of the water again with only my reflection staring back at me, I realize how very little has changed. My eyes are still plain and brown, maybe a little sadder now and with more secrets sunk like ships at the bottoms. My face is longer too, and more narrow, and my legs seem awkwardly long beneath me. The blue is the same though, murky and dull, framed by black on my legs and face. At the time I had been confident that I looked nothing like him, nothing like the man from meadow all those years ago. But now staring down at a plain, slender creature with sad, lonely eyes and the shadow of uncertainty twisting the curve of my mouth, I’m not so sure.
through this magnifying glass I see a thousand finger prints
on the surfaces of who I am
He is guarded by the shade, and surrounded by nothing more than ebony bark and laurel green brush. The soft sound of distant birds temporarily alarm his ears, pulling him from his eden of silence and reviving him into reality.
The moon has risen with only seconds of the sunset dwindling in the sky. He lingers in the meadow tree line, the overhanging branches and thickly decorated forest hides his darkened shape in the best of efforts.
Our quiet wolf isn’t a sociable soul; his talent is within his own mind. His guarded brain is like a never dying computer, consistently analyzing and discovering in it’s best attempt to understand. It isn’t about the object itself, but the inner workings and the mechanics that fascinates his imaginative thought. The food chain of the forest, the purpose of evolution for every mammal—he thinks of it all. If he isn’t sure, he assumes his best estimate to be correct. If he discovers it, his mind will be satisfied for the rest of the day.
A never ending book that he insists on writing.
The moon has fully risen now, full and bountiful he sees almost more than when the sun had hung over his head. Darkness had always called to him; at least, since the Jungle had become his biggest nightmare. Since the emerald amazonian trees did him over, he found himself enticed by black. Like a moth attracted to light, he found himself consistently searching for the darkest bit of shade, the blackest cave, the dingiest cove. His eyes were like radar for the colour black, it could not hide from him.
Then again, in a world as small as Beqanna, what can truly hide from him?
Emerging from the tree line, his silvery painted onyx frame floats hauntingly towards the open field, seemingly empty and abandoned at this time of night. Opacity is an eerie sight, a mixture of greys, blacks, and whites all decorating his coat making him closer to the paranormal than he would ever notice.
He is almost frighteningly handsome; an illusion of sorts. If it weren’t for the slight chip in his right ear, he might have been sculpted by some God. Though there are far more discerning traits not easily seen by the naked eye. He is decorated in baggage weighing him down since the day he touched ground—he may be a ken doll, but he is so much less than perfect.
It is then he sees that he is not in fact alone—while meandering the middle of the meadow lost in a train of thought—and his attention is instinctively drawn to the creature only yards from his touch. She is equally as odd (he assumes) seeing her this late. Then again, maybe she has a death wish.
All females do.
Seeing a woman so easily within reach makes his blood boil. It had been what seemed like decades though it was hardly years since his last interaction with a horse, let alone a female. Remembering her cool words and overwhelming anger triggers a defensive feeling throughout his body, instantly seizing through and up his spine, his throat running dry.
And despite all this hidden emotion, he still slinks to her side almost grazing shoulder to shoulder and following her stare.
She is very much a female; dainty, with a fragile frame and light aroma. Her coat is decorated with a faded blue tone, the moon accentuating the subtle roan pulling from her coat. He would be lying if he were to say he didn’t see her beauty; but he would also be lying if he said he didn’t imagine blooding pooling to the floor from her throat.
How simple it would be, no one around with only the odd owl to witness the event. To see her lying with a slight twitch in her leg, and rushed exhales from her stomach. The mesmerizing moonlight hauntingly lighting her ghost frame as the soul of her body desperately hangs on.
But here she is, glancing innocently at her own reflection with what Opacity can only assume as self pity and self consciousness. And here he is, with the opportunity to protect the heart of a future man, matching her quizzical expression.
He senses her like a psychic feels their client. He senses her energy wafting around her, a depressing aura. He feels her body radiating a steady heat like a car heater set on low, with the conflicting coolness of the water below them rising to make a war of temperatures.
And while he cannot help but imagine her painful, steady death, he also is intrigued by her doubtfulness and obvious depression.
So he stands, staring at her reflection without paying mind to his own, analyzing every feature on her face. The only thing he does best.
