Prayer

It was the bothering humidity that had tried to push her eyelids down, but she couldn't feel them lock into place as the day shot down into night, and the moon was alive and the humidity, yes, still was too. She laid her heels down next to her pale feet, and her hair dangled sadly around her face and down her shoulders. The wind blew through the windows and the entrance, the tree giving her music as its leaves rustled in her ears. Her makeup was a mess, she knew, with all the tears and rain. But she will never know how she had always triumphed an ugliness people anticipated to see, because when she dashed away and sobbed and felt utterly and devastatingly alone she was still pretty. No, not pretty, but beautiful. Never... plain. Her gown bled raindrops, and as she gasped for air she tore off a part, and another part, of her infamous gown.

Her lower lip quivered as a breakdown hummed around. Her breaths were commas, and they were ragged ones. Trying to collect herself, the leaves rustled on some more, and she relinquished almost half of her meticulously prepared attire for comfort. Her canvas has been brushed with violent colors, and she couldn't shield it. She couldn't improvise a cover. So she ran. To his—their?—tree house. She had spun around streets and found it in the midst of an unpleasant drizzle accumulating to rain—a whimper accumulating to a wail—and nimbly but carefully rose up the familiar ladder after shooting her worn out heels through the entrance and into the blank half-time abode of a dearly missed face. She had breathed the strong panels of wood around her, hoping the joy of a hundred memories would come tend to her, and yet—she almost expected this—all she felt was nostalgia as the boastful rain tumbled down from the clouds. And she wished all the melancholy she knew would vanish down all the gutters throughout the street. 

The rain came on some more for quite some time. She tucked her knees under her chin, and although the heat felt almost lost and unusual beside the rain's gloom, it felt golden. The world felt golden, and she wiggled her toes as it tickled the wooden floor. This was the dance floor she knew. And hey, it had no disco ball, no Top Forty either, but it was home—it was the sight of droopy trees and the soundtrack of her thoughts. She had abandoned it. He had then later abandoned it, too. But she had sped back to each and every moment spent in the funny, sticky heat and humidity of this treehouse. She wasn't weak, but she was troubled, and she missed out on everything too damn soon. She missed this, missed him, and just sitting down inside felt like a dream and a wish. Wiping her face with clean cloth, she scooted closer to a window and drank the tears of the evening sky, praying—oh, so, praying—for freedom. And a chance. A chance for what? For the space around her to stay there, and strength—dear God, strength—to know better. And she felt like she did... But then she wanted all the acid off her tongue. Please.

A mutter. A whisper. A half-broken cry. Then a silhouette crushing down into a fetus, and breathing, then sleeping. But not forever, not yet.

"Amen."

Amen.