A girl is just a girl
walking barefoot alone in green fields
stretching out as the summer sun sets
carving out eulogies to the
receding bright blue skies and
the golden yellow light she holds her hands up to catch
a girl is just a girl until she is running between sunshine and shadow
feeling like she belongs to neither
but also like she is made of both
somehow forsaken by the dark and the light
until she is wrinkled skin
from being underwater too long
and rushing up
gasping for breath or for air
(did you crave what you need or what it gives you?)
until she is tripping over her own broken promises
like they are stray branches of trees
she spent all her life growing
until she stands there
a silhouette against the moonlight
now made of only myth or legend
on the run from ghosts
or maybe chasing them
a haunted or hunted thing
made of flickering flames and cool gusts or wind
always fading away
always floating right past
carrying away autumn leaves into crevices forgotten until the passing of the season
until she decides to step out of this rotting cage she thought she was trapped in
this mausoleum
a monument to all her romanticized hopes
this shedding a type of becoming
i like to think that will be me
that i, too will end my chapter by the fire
instead of trapped by the flames
