Trails of Fire

It's been awhile since I shared some creative writing, so I figured I'd post this. It was born out of real life; however, whether it was an event I experienced, or something that happened to someone I know, or was inspired by a passerby or poster on the street...well, I'll leave that up to you. Love it, hate it, make of it what you will.

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The butterflies of worry are skipping rope, and time is dangling from an ever-shrinking road. Nerves and the jittery expectation that something will go wrong, give way to the devastating acceptance that it has. The sinking swirl of these bitter emotions seem to hold sway over the air itself, for as seconds slip away too fast for time, the clouds remember they have held too long, the tears so many of us refuse to let show. They let them all fall then, cloaked in the costume of rain; quiet screams sent to kill the ground.

Then comes fear. A cold, wormy possibility that it has all been for naught, a wasted courage. That the joyful anticipation that’s being singing to you for months was really only cruel apparition. Time turns from a quiet roar to a full out scream, and you dash up - fall sideways - zig when you should have skipped - turn around and around in a sacred circle you didn’t even know you were in. A reprieve…but it’s brief and mixed with a vicious angst and song, almost negating it’s numbing balm of relief. Still, you can’t help but let yourself feel embraced by the sweet blur of brown and blue and calm responsibility that no longer rests entirely on your shoulders.And hope, always hope. 

But time has now almost reached that uncrossable line.

So run girl, run girl, run girl, fly. Float above the crowd. Take that wind sending magic through your hair and use it to give you the speed to push those heels – flip, pip, flipping – along the pavement into a flying soar. Move up that hill on legs that know nothing of impossibility, let your eyes gleam in the golden light of your goal so close before you. One brief barrier and at last you are through....

and stepping into a labyrinthine world of chaos and jewels and vaudevillian delights. Lights flicker and glow and shine. Every delight prickling along your skin. Screaming, laughter, painted minds, faces twisted into anathemas of sadness. Souls drawn inexplicably towards a firestorm of reality and art - an icon of magnificence. A phoenix who has called out each of our names, and we have all come running, dancing in on her trails of fire.

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