‎”I’m still awake,” she sighed.

She stretched so her right foot, at a diagonal and off the bed, reached for the door, while her right arm clutched her pillow tightly to her head. All week long, whispers and pictures reminding her she was not “enough” had been sifting down on her like gray snow, burying her in breathless drifts:

… that man’s leer took her skin and discarded her life;
… that magazine’s style soiled her clothes, they could never come clean;
… those friends said… those friends and their serial disappointments
… media’s mirror “what you’re not… what you’re not…”

“What I’m not… what I’m not…” She threw the covers back with sudden fury, sudden strength, wrapped herself in her old comfortable robe, and stormed outside. The frozen ground pricked her bare feet; she walked on a bed of ice coals, their smoke was her breath, they demanded her presence. They cleared her head.

Wasn’t she beautiful, with her collection of contentments and quiet loves, her giving and receiving? Even if none where there to share it, tonight?

“No,” said the man in her head, the magazine in her eyes, the friends in her heart, the sexual pulse of the news. “No…”

The earth turned around its center, making a wheel of the stars. The moon was just above the eastern trees, and her blue light filled the yard. There was no wind. With each breath out, a word the size of her life was described in a cloud of shimmering mist. Alive. Alive. Alive.

“I’m awake,” she thought.

“Silent Breath”, by MasterXodin at DeviantArt.com

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