a dream and a whistle

She fell asleep there, the rolls of silk keeping her warm against the wispy airs determined searching fingers, watching the stars as they slowly appeared from behind the smog cloud. They looked to her like they to were waiting to dance. Waiting til no one was watching so they could make the dark backdrop of the night their stage and waltz past the moon.

She looked peaceful, albeit uncomfortable, wrapped in the green silk gown. A mess of red hair sprawled haphazardly against her arms, gently holding her sleeping head. She breathed, and her breath played like smoke in the nights air.

It seemed to the girl that no matter how peacefully she fell into her sleep the nightmares would always find. The dreams where she couldn't run, or scream, or defend herself, or help anyone. The dreams where things were constantly held back from her. And so she ran and she screamed and fought, though the efforts bore little result and she awoke in a sweaty howling scream, a scream that could be heard many miles away, a scream that could not be held back by any nightmare.

Later that day as she absentmindedly weaved her piglets in-between overgrown patches of grass she realised she was being watched. A little bird in a tree was sitting on a branch, his head cocked with curiosity and caution.

She glanced down at her peanut butter sandwich and back to the little bird. It was all she had to eat that day, but it was also all she had to offer.

dancing shoes

She wore a party dress. It was the only dress she'd ever owned but she wore it every day, her dirty feet peeping out from the green hemline like little mud covered piglets.

She danced up and down the street, spinning the skirt around and around.

She had always wanted to go to a ball and be asked to dance by the prince or to the dinner and be led to the dance floor by the handsome and mysterious host... But she had never been to either of these events, she had only ever danced alone in the street with her green silk dress and muddy little toes. She closed her eyes as she danced and imagined a room full of smiling dancing people around her and the sound of the music. Oh the music, she could only dream about its harmonies and melodies, she hummed along as she dipped and twirled on the concrete, busy in her fantasy world not realising her feet were worn bloody and bare.

As the humming in her head slowly pattered out so did the sound of her feet slapping against the pavement. It was the quiet, seemingly sudden to her, that snapped her from her dreams. She found herself lying on the ground under a smoggy night sky, wishing on a star for her life to begin.

whale watching

I'm sitting here staring at this screen, my toes in the sand waiting for the water to lap up.

I sit here with the fluorescent lights, the water gently covering the slick sand, the dogs running in and out of the water, chasing the waves.

The view is spectacular, a horizon empty but for a kite surfer, a boat. The sky melting into the water, salt mist covering my sticky salt-lick skin.

I surf the internet looking for something to do, to occupy my stagnant brain. The wind gusts and blows my hair in front of my face, flicking the ends into my mouth. I shake and take a pin from my desk, securing the hair behind my ear.

I slip my heels off under my desk so the water can lick my toes with their icy cold tongues and I smile, because this beach is my mine. I am the only one here, apart from the boy next to me with his shovel and bucket, he's here too. he's making sandcastles.

I put my notebook aside and take the phone off the hook and I go and I make sandcastles with him, he's a man now. He has grown up but I am the same age. We are looking at computer screens and talking about lay-outs and graphics.

I return the phone to the hook and my feet to their shoes and I continue my work.

petals

there's a flower looking at me and smiling. It's white and has frills, the edges are turning brown. It's little leaves are turning in on themselves, it looks as though it has its hands on its hips.

It was a gift this flower, from a stranger on a street corner. He smiled and I smiled and then the flower smiled.

I almost killed it, and yet it lives and it smiles, and it smiles at me.