prayed to keep my soul
S
he bleeds not blood, but wanderlust. It pours from her veins in vivid colors, as if it were a rainbow stuck inside her chest and not a heart, as if she were only comprised of other places, other lands, instead of organs, bones, muscle. Elliana is an accumulation of the world. She has heard the people of the world and she has heard their stories whispered in her ear at night in the dark. Elliana has heard so many stories and yet when she closes her eyes every night she only wishes to hear more. They have told her the stories of mountains they climbed, they have told her stories how evil is a strong force still in the world, they have told her stories of dragons, they have told her stories of water horses. Adventure, bravery, sorrow, cowardice. She hears story after story and wonders where hers fits in, or if she would be destined to walk among the pages, dancing on the words traced in ink, remembering them to one day speak them. To speak the stories of others that have lost their chance to tell them.
Those awestruck doe eyes gaze at the world of mirrors around her. They reflect back at her, showing her dark face looking back at her. There are two too-blue eyes on her face that look like her mother’s eyes, like the godmother she has never met, or the grandmother that sleeps six feet under. There is a heart on her brow, like her mother. The curious look to the crook of her smile is like her father, but the moon marking, her mother tells her it is Caligo’s marking. Elliana asked if any others had it. She said yes, but she did not say who and so Elli did not ask. That single pale leg, that reaches forward, sometimes Elliana dreams that it belongs to someone else. She thinks it must be a spirit, but they have never asked for it back and so she keeps it. She sees something else in herself too. Shadows. They pass over her face like a passing raincloud. She wants them to stay as much as she wants them to leave.
She walks still, watching her reflection break apart and form back together. She thinks she could walk through this place for eternity, just looking to her own reflection, discovering more pieces to it, finding more hidden secrets in every delicate curve of her face or tilt to her head.
And the mirrors here start to look a less like mirrors and more like clocks.
One year falls away and her limbs begin to lengthen buried in the snow.
Two years fall away and the roundness of her cheeks gives way to angles and planes.
Three years fall away and she is grown, a moonflower sits in her hair, her eyes are still blue.
Four years away and suddenly the clocks stop.
She is not alone anymore.
“Who are you?”
And am I still me?
@isra elliana speaks
elliana
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