If I close my eyes this moment, I could probably sleep forever.
Skin on blush satin and bones on feathers. A black velvet blind-fold so light never returns. A tepid tomb for a womb of rest.
Body at peace, my spirit could wander to other realms less dense than gravity tethering me so heavily to this one.
I could feel lightness again. A memory of wings and easy flying.
Unbound from shackles of struggle in the contrast of weighted walking and a soaring heart, I could dance in otherworld skies.
I could swim in embryonic waters of sacred pools and my mother’s arms. To see her face again in more than my reflection.
To transcend the glass and feel her hand in mine. Silken surfaces touch to make gold where ashes used to reign.
To see her smile lighting up the miles in every direction. Her amber-chocolate eyes full of an ethereal moon.
Yet I am awake in the plane where she left me. My body aches as if a force is pulling me out instead of in.
The glue keeping me intact rebels, and I come unhinged. My skeleton can’t endure being in a bag made of blood and fragile membrane.
She wants to fly apart and scatter, for her pieces to land on different stars across the universe.
To bury themselves deep in celestial sands never caged in hourglasses of shame or pain.
To be ground down to pearlescent dust, gleaming in the freedom of hovering in the void, part of a shimmering sea of other bones
who left their homes, too, so they’d never be forced to hold it together again.
Copyright © Sheyorah Naify, 2021
Creature Speak 