dressflower

Something sparks, propels into existence at his fingertips. It is brilliant and lively, aching with beauty as it trembles with life. It is both tangible and not, and Alastar watches it flutter from the roots of the tree, stretches up the bark, to its branches, to its dry, crackled leaves. They shake, too, with something in the air. Beneath his feet, grass ascends, flitters, tickles his toes, comes to life. The same energy travels the field. It stimulates the dirt, the things that live deep beneath it, brings it back to life– creates things of its own that shall live, thrive, and co-exist. They will come to need the soil, the roots of

I resurfaced, the taste of salt and rare coins in my mouth. I moved upward like a swimmer and kissed you properly so I might not be alone. The streetlight poured silver down your chest through the open window and your hair sank pale and fragrant into the edges of my vision in the dark. I could not see your eyes so much as sense them, as if they were familiar stones on a path I only walk when I am in love. I watched the curtain swaying nearby, numb and ornate and rhythmic, now and then touching your shoulder the way I used to wish I could. It moved like a sleeve just before a hand emerges, restless yet un-alive, prophesying in half-

A door opens. I close it, gently. The dumb animal of my heart, small rodent, dithers and squeaks. It is afraid one way or the other. Let it be. A door opens, another. Nothing but white rooms, empty mazes, corners to be backed into. A million open doors, banging incessant, the heckling gallery. The animal dreams about shattering, becoming a shard of bone, a bone knife. Another white room. Let it be. I sit at the center, or a center, the doors fluttering like an eye. White everywhere. The animal is a snake or a crow or dead. White. Nothing to be done. Nothing to bite or cut. The doors laugh and fall away; in the unbroken white, my hea