she is a cloud..

hey.. I’m here. it’s okay. 

I extend my hands, shuffling them for an answer. the mud is thick, inexorably so. I begin to wonder if it’s possible to breathe out here, and whether she had spent all this time panting in shallow breaths.

please, just hold my hand.

all I hear is silence. the sinking realisation that I won’t receive much from my efforts weighs me down. it is the kind of reaching out that has to happen with the heart’s eye.

I see you, I whisper. she’s holding her knees up to her chest, hiding her face, smothered from the mud. her skin is fragile, almost cracked, her bones protruding miserably. I wish I could hear her cries, but it’s the silence of being swallowed by neglect. a lonely wave that drifted off into the narrowest container and is finally free to keep crashing violently onto the cracks of her skin to finally break something.

although it’s dark in this corner of my heart she has chosen to sink in, I sit next to her, and she does not stir. her numbness is loud, so loud that she does not recognise me. I allow my hands to touch the shrivelled mud on her skin and I’m electrified by how she pushes me away, even so unconsciously. almost instantly, she recoils, tightening the grip on her knees, every atom of her asking me to leave.

we sit in silence for days. she has allowed herself to stand up and look at me for a moment. perhaps she walks around by my side, dubious, vigilant. even now that she has trusted me just this little bit, she is silent. her opal eyes are wide, observant, and expressive, taking everything in but her words are almost inexistent. that softness of being is a kind I don’t usually live with. I deeply gaze to find it— a secret of love. it’s there in her meek silence; the porcelain-like crumpled beauty; and fine artistry of being in tune with a universe in its expanse.

I dissociate almost every day on my way to work. sometimes it requires me to put a mask on— a smile, a daring, bold confident voice, and inexhaustible humour. most of the time I want to be here listening to her silence, trailing her gaze, touching the soft clouds in her heart. her chest is an October sky— mirthful, pristine, fresh and windy. it requires so much wholeheartedness to hold space for this kind of revitalising softness.

her dejected expression is one I understand. you’re going to abandon me again, she says with her eyes. I almost believe her, for I return to my loud ways almost every time and forget she’s there. I forget to give permission and allow her wisdom to float in my sky. I forget to live for her. I forget to serve her. I forget that with only an ounce of her wisdom, her fingers could magically bring the dead alive. her gaze could stir rivers of healing tears in stone-like eyes. 

I know what she's capable of. I just never consider giving her permission to be here.

oh, my little one. I know you’re here in this silence and you won't talk or even try to make yourself heard. it’s I who needs to be reminded of you. I’ve made this all about myself as you cuddled up in this muddy weight, locking yourself in cages. little do you know that it’s me you locked instead.

living by your side and in your remembrance, what a beautiful place to be. I know these are apologies you don’t want to hear. but dearest cloud, what if my heart's eyes were born just to see you through. what if my heart's eyes were born to gaze into your softest skies.

be my cloud, my little one.