KarenWanny

i.   in which i learn how to fall. it's just a step forward.     it's just a breath:     an inhalation;     a release. it's the whisper of wings; the ghost of a spiderweb across my fingers. it's the white noise that sings along my skin, and the cool air on my lips. i can breathe blue skies and winter and white sunlight and the silent sounds of summer trail along my neck to tangle in my hair. i can close my eyes to the distance and fall into the sky. ii.  in which i learn how to let go. it's just a movement of muscle.      it's just a pause:    

the bones of my smile curve too harshly. they push up through my skin; rupture through my cheeks. crack open my lips in a grin hungrier than words; a cheshire cat stripped of summer innocence made terrible in blades and blood. switchblade teeth rip holes through the still air, knife through your heartstrings like paper. carnal; carnage. you stare at me with eyes pulled tight, your pupils shrinking away as my hands curve into claws at your side. killer.

I stand in a skeleton embrace; silver against gold. summer smiles meet winter throats and exhale, oxygen presses against my lips, and you whispered breathe mouths moving as one to expel gasps that hang. ghosts in the air. our skulls grin and the cold presses into my temples, and the sockets of my smiles. the sunlight snaps over your shoulder trickles along my bent spine, across swathes of skin holding in the sky.

before I lived in silence darkness broken by murmured sound and vague light of new-developed eyes; translucent veins and pale irises. ribcages grew in the dark no sunlight to help them bloom from paper-thin spines. ivory branches; brittle. caging in a heart born to beat. tall above my curved frame, - a comma, brief pause - [the breath between screams and raw red skin] you stood, copper hair and freckled laughter. I peered through the gaps in your eyelashes and we smiled. but before before bones and summer skin, North Carolina and early sunsets, before songs and sarcasm and so much more, I lived in silence a reprieve fro