High Flight
By Kimmy
In his dreams, Liam has wings. Wide and blue and as soft as the sky at night, its edges blurred into sleep and sigh and surrender. He spreads them, arches into the shadow displacement that they throw around him (darklighthalflight) and closes his eyes because its poetry that he can taste and feel.
The wind plays around him, tugs and pulls at the edges of his clothes (skin) and leads him to the edge the edge of what, he wonders, and when he looks down, he never knows, because at one instant hes perched atop St. Michaels, and the next hes dancing on the moon and keeps him there with a gentle push and tug that always brings up images of saltwater and his grandmothers cottage.
Oceans pull to him sway, lap and lick with every ebb and flow of changing tide and the crashseep of wave after wave and the breaking of swell on surf and the stars dance around him, swirls of energy and light that glow with secrets and promises and hidden words that sound like maybe and yesterday and tomorrow.
Sometimes, when hes on St. Michaels (here is the church, and here is the steeple) he thinks he can hear singing, and for a moment he forgets he has wings, because the voices pull at him like gravity pulls at him, and he wavers on the edge. But the singing never lasts Corde natus ex parentis ante mundi exordium / A et O cognominatus, ipse fons et clausula / Omnium quae sunt, fuerunt, quaeque post futura sunt and when it fades, he thinks part of him fades with it, and he brings a hand to his chest and thats when he remembers the wings. (open the doors, and where are the people?)
He cant feel his heartbeat when hes dreaming.
They rustle with him, but he cant feel them either, and when the wind grabs him rears and rises and washes ashore they fold around him, warm and soft with feathers of energy that wrap and waver and are as clear as daylight in water.
Once just once, and the was enough he thought he saw faces staring back at him, with wide eyes and dirty mouths and hands that reached and pointed and burned and whenever he thinks of this hes not sure if that was the first time; wings arent made of time, or reason, but they always leave whisper-touches of March and September along his arms for when he wakes he closes his eyes again.
The feel of the ground goes with the sight, and he tips unsure and the wings are still around him expanding, contracting, midnightmorningchurchbellblue and he mistakes them for the sky (its always day) thats falling farther away from him even as he realises knows that there are people below him, and within him, and that the wings are part of him like the memory of driftwood and the jerk of Elsewhere between space and reality.
He doesnt wake as he falls sometimes, hes not even sure hes falling, except for the steady pull downward, head first and body following and folding and bending to gravity and turns into the plunge. His arms spread, flow out and trace ripples in the air like a stone in the river (ocean) and the wings are behind him. It is always at that moment when oxygen is liquid and air is thick and heavy that very instant, that he realises that having wings doesnt mean you can fly, and hes going to keep falling.
Hes never landed - sometimes, he wants to; wants the impact and the lurch and the harshgruntpain that will tell with a rush of air and the taste of blood that he has reached the ground, that its really there, waiting and when he wakes, hes still falling, and can still feel the tug of earth in his middle, and the blackinkquillstrokes of wings on his back.
Sometimes sometimes he can see eyes watching him, wide and alien blue like the skies that stretched above his father when he could still wonder at their secrets, and green and deep like the hills that his mother loved. Thats when he can tell hes landed after all, and that he still has wings.
(open the doors, and here are the people.)
By Kimmy
In his dreams, Liam has wings. Wide and blue and as soft as the sky at night, its edges blurred into sleep and sigh and surrender. He spreads them, arches into the shadow displacement that they throw around him (darklighthalflight) and closes his eyes because its poetry that he can taste and feel.
The wind plays around him, tugs and pulls at the edges of his clothes (skin) and leads him to the edge the edge of what, he wonders, and when he looks down, he never knows, because at one instant hes perched atop St. Michaels, and the next hes dancing on the moon and keeps him there with a gentle push and tug that always brings up images of saltwater and his grandmothers cottage.
Oceans pull to him sway, lap and lick with every ebb and flow of changing tide and the crashseep of wave after wave and the breaking of swell on surf and the stars dance around him, swirls of energy and light that glow with secrets and promises and hidden words that sound like maybe and yesterday and tomorrow.
Sometimes, when hes on St. Michaels (here is the church, and here is the steeple) he thinks he can hear singing, and for a moment he forgets he has wings, because the voices pull at him like gravity pulls at him, and he wavers on the edge. But the singing never lasts Corde natus ex parentis ante mundi exordium / A et O cognominatus, ipse fons et clausula / Omnium quae sunt, fuerunt, quaeque post futura sunt and when it fades, he thinks part of him fades with it, and he brings a hand to his chest and thats when he remembers the wings. (open the doors, and where are the people?)
He cant feel his heartbeat when hes dreaming.
They rustle with him, but he cant feel them either, and when the wind grabs him rears and rises and washes ashore they fold around him, warm and soft with feathers of energy that wrap and waver and are as clear as daylight in water.
Once just once, and the was enough he thought he saw faces staring back at him, with wide eyes and dirty mouths and hands that reached and pointed and burned and whenever he thinks of this hes not sure if that was the first time; wings arent made of time, or reason, but they always leave whisper-touches of March and September along his arms for when he wakes he closes his eyes again.
The feel of the ground goes with the sight, and he tips unsure and the wings are still around him expanding, contracting, midnightmorningchurchbellblue and he mistakes them for the sky (its always day) thats falling farther away from him even as he realises knows that there are people below him, and within him, and that the wings are part of him like the memory of driftwood and the jerk of Elsewhere between space and reality.
He doesnt wake as he falls sometimes, hes not even sure hes falling, except for the steady pull downward, head first and body following and folding and bending to gravity and turns into the plunge. His arms spread, flow out and trace ripples in the air like a stone in the river (ocean) and the wings are behind him. It is always at that moment when oxygen is liquid and air is thick and heavy that very instant, that he realises that having wings doesnt mean you can fly, and hes going to keep falling.
Hes never landed - sometimes, he wants to; wants the impact and the lurch and the harshgruntpain that will tell with a rush of air and the taste of blood that he has reached the ground, that its really there, waiting and when he wakes, hes still falling, and can still feel the tug of earth in his middle, and the blackinkquillstrokes of wings on his back.
Sometimes sometimes he can see eyes watching him, wide and alien blue like the skies that stretched above his father when he could still wonder at their secrets, and green and deep like the hills that his mother loved. Thats when he can tell hes landed after all, and that he still has wings.
(open the doors, and here are the people.)
