She finds herself looking up at the clouds often. She lays
outside and stares straight out, blocking out the buildings around her and
losing herself in the endless sea of blue and white. She sits on her couch and
looks outward through the glass windows, high enough up that she can’t see the
life below. The clouds seem to expand towards her, as if offering to swallow
her up. There is a peaceful notion in being swallowed up and lost at sea in the
sky. Movement catches her eye. She sees that it is a small bird. It looks like
a speck of dust; its wings are fluttering almost as hard and fast as her
heartbeat. It is doing circles and going back and forth. There does not seem to
be any rhyme or reason to its movements. She remembers that when she saw birds
doing this in the past, it annoyed her. They seemed so helpless and lost just
flying in circles in the sky. Now, with new eyes, her chest lifts in inspiration
as she peers at the small bird with envy. Her eyes hang onto its every dive
with excitement, her heart picking up and waiting for the next swoop in giddy anticipation.
She wonders what it must be like up there: to be so free. She wonders what it
must be like to be so sure of yourself, to swoop and dive in an abyss of blue
knowing all that is keeping you up is the power of your own self. She wishes
she could be lost and free and powerful up in the sky with the birds too.
Her shaking fingers turn on a soft melody where the voice of
an angel rips at the stitches she so carefully sewed. The melody curls through
the empty apartment, finding every crevice and forcing itself in. The coffee
grinds make a grating sound as she scoops a big pile and pours it. Sizzling and
steaming, the pot begins to fill. Her lips: soft and slightly open. A breath
struggles in sympathetically, if you weren’t paying close enough attention you
wouldn’t realize she was struggling. Her shaking fingers find a lighter. She shakenly
puts a cigarette between her lifeless lips. With a flick of her thumb, an angry
flame bursts up and touches the tip of the cigarette. The end comes to life
with orange embers. A snakelike smoke cloud slithers slowly out of her lips and
up into the rafters. Outside it has already begun to rain.
She takes a deep breath, not too deep, afraid that the
stitches will tear. She can feel the hole in her chest growing. It is all too
familiar; a malicious monster that she knew for too long. She sucks in another
drag and her throat burns. She tries to pretend it doesn’t hurt, it seems as if
this has become her biggest skill. She likes the smell that is now occupying
the lonely apartment. Coffee and cigarettes. She tries not to let it bring the
memories it so eagerly wants her to remember. Instead, she turns to the window
and stares up at the clouds. The rain falls slowly down the glass and she
stares out into the clouds hoping to find a bird there; free.
