Jerked from slumber, the sun is high, summoning the first crack of wake. Pulled into fresh clothing, she sighs, ready to take.
Draped in black and gold, boots clomp down concrete,
drawing eyes that are less discreet.
Descending downstairs, swiping a card with a ss-click, the day commences.
Chatterings pull on puppet strings, dancing for audiences, smiles painted on under fibred masks, rubbing, itching at freshly worn skin. Tap, tap, tap, the ends of rubber soles bounce on laminate floors, mimicking the clap-clap-clap of silent internal applause. The first transaction is complete.
-It's an extra fifteen off? Amazing! -Can I return this?
-I have a return."
-Can you price check this?
-I'm here to pick up an order.
-You're name is beautiful.
-I love your necklace.
Sounds fill up space. Entering the canals of a receiving ear, a place of memory. A list. A
place of repetition.
Her ammunition. Firing off the same responses, the same answers.
Her eyes glimpse digital clock numbers, pattering keys on nimble fingers, typing away
the enter buttons, waiting to break. She needs a break. Rumblings, grumblings, gurglings, inside her stomach curdle, her arms heavy with ligaments and hunger, waiting no longer. Time has ticked to three in the noon. Not a moment too soon.
Clothing whooshes on air, barely clinging to the limbs hanging by muscle and tissue, swaying back and forth, the knee rises and descends down stone stairs, pop-crack, pop-crack, at the breaths exhaled inside marrow. There is sorrow.
Deep, nestled in the hairs of a mind picked clean of energy, three more hours await. Tick. Tick. Click. A smile spread on her face like warm butter on toast. She has done the most, a customer smiles back, a break, a crack in the day. Hope. She has hope. Tick. Tick. Click. Done. She has done.
Dragged to a home of solace, the limbs recline, no longer in decline. The breaths ease, the mind purged of voices, of sounds, of lists, of names. The arms hang, the fingers twitch, the feet repose, the air pulled softly into lungs.
Asleep. High above in her thrones, she is a body of sleeping bones.
-body of sleeping bones
YOU ARE READING
Thorns in Elysian Fields
PoetryA collection of poems that embodies themes of Greek mythology, growth, revival, healing, and love. "she tasted stars between the cracks of her teeth, wondering what it would be like to devour the universe."
