Once Upon a Time...

There was a girl
with peacock feather toes
and firefly fingers
Who blew kisses of green-glass doves
just because.

Until she heard a hydrangea whisper
that told her to look up
at a dove flying overhead
that painted the sky
the color of silence.

Glass and Peacock and Fireflies
weren't enough anymore
She wanted horizons
A piece of that
dazzling symmetry.

She peeled away the calalilly
fingers that kissed
beautiful, amazing, compassionate
and embraced the claws that sneered
ugly, disgusting, useless.

With a whimper she discovered
She could crack glass
With a shriek she found herself
bleeding in a garden of broken wings
Bones are hollow too

She fixated on the ever-flickering, ever-elusive sunset
As she learned a new rhythm
Pull. Crack. Snap.
Pull. Crack. Snap.
She was surprised how easily this mambo came to her
as she cooed along with the twinkling of marimba keys
against her skull

The fireflies darted away from her jaded hands like fugitives
blazing a trail of confusion
As the peacock feathers
Oxidized and crumbled into
the abyss.

She broke herself
until the only symmetry left was a
Burn

and a Whisper.