love is the red the rose on your coffin door, what's life like bleeding on the floor?

Velveteen shadows are the comfort, the shield to the world outside. The trees, the sentinels that guard the soft heart of the vessel, this vessel of mine. For those moments, that the sun had touched me, I felt peppered with hysteria, it rove my body in mock gooseflesh and touched me in a way that was both glorious and heart wrenching. I stay in the inky perimeter, as the streaks of light pierce through the boughs and brighten the green ground, I step around them, figure hugging the trees, brushing against the course bark and sinking into the moist earth of fungi and peat.

Silver touched eyes glaze over, forgotten, moved on. I blended in well, a mixture of brush and leaves, of ink and bark. Ah, but my confines go unshielded for that fleeting moment and the crows spot me, all feathers and harking cries, in that split second of indecision I scuttle, flinty hooves a vibrato, an echo against the hardening ground. It is to late to run, to flee into the shadows, not now they has seen me, ever watchful in my quietness. I swallow the lump in my throat, a forgotten breath, and I slip outwards once more, a nervy step contradicting my bold action.

'Shh.' The words slip from my tongue, like the velvet of the shadows that drape my hide, and the coarseness of the bark, where their gnarled boughs sway above me in the breeze, hooked fingers reaching out, ready to pull me back into he confines of the darkness, where all is safe, all is safe indeed. My fluffed ears twirl, like uncoordinated peaks, they bow and bend and flicker, finding the song of the dark far less enticing than the serenade of the light beyond -- a lark song, is far more melodious than the eerie whistle through the trees.

My form fidgets, legs stretching, tentative in their strides. I am still getting used to the mechanics of movement, it is far easier to simply stand against a tree, rough bark rubbing against my soft skin, holding me up, keeping me in the prison. But no one can grow in prison, only set free like the larks from winter's cold reign, they, they are not stifled by the darkness. My silver coin eyes turn from the inky blackness behind, and back to the glistening world outside. The figures out there are not melting, they are still very much a palpable mass, grazing, frolicking. I refuse the idea, even though it tastes sweet, hopeful. I step back into the inky blackness, shielded by the cover of growing spring leaves, bracken and gorse.

You just don't know what is out there, in the light.

v a e r m i n a
chantale x nykeln