(i dont want to be weighed down any longer i want to fly away)
Sometimes, Efua would run. She'd run faster than anyone she knew; she'd pump her legs until her heart pounded in her ears, until her throat burned, until her eyes watered from enervation, until her legs felt heavy, and her face flushed light brown like the Hazel Fay in her mum's garden. Then she'd jump off the waterfall where the cliff ran into the lake and - even if it was just for a moment - she would fly; Efua would feel time slow down, the roaring of the falls muted by the palpating of her heart. There was no stress or anxiety, no fear. It was just her and the sky, whenever she thought of this, she would smile as she soared for those few marvelous seconds.
Then, she would fall right back down to earth.
-
She had started running when The Man had come in the mid summer, pressing kisses into her mother's neck while she giggled with a half-hearted oh stop that! Efua immediately disliked him - a scowl would cross her face when they were in the same room, her voice taunt and sharp and her long walks had turned into jogs when he had moved in not two weeks later. She hadn't said anything to oppose. How could she? Her mother had told her not to ruin this relationship with the tall man with a thick polish accent, so she had zipped her lips and looked at her feet, ebony hair sweeping past pointed ears, set around a face like an acorn both in shape and shade. Her mother would smile and pat her on the head, tawny, yellowish-brown fingers sliding through knots and cupping the side of her face.
please leave him, you cant even talk to your friends without his permission
mommy you know hes recording our conversations
mommy-?
... i know he is, dearie.
A few months later, she started to run.
you fucking whore how could you do this?!
i didnt cheat on you you fucking piece of shit you dont even let me outside of the fucking house!
youre fucking your boss huh? you like to spread your legs for old men huh?
dont talk like that in front of my child i didnt do anything wrong!
She had froze at the most important moment, feeling a jolt of shock as her heartbeat accelerated and as her brown eyes dilated with horror. Every single muscle, every single cell had screamed at her and adrenaline flooded through her veins because she needed to run.
She needed to flee and pump her legs and run until tears of exhaustion flooded her eyes and never come back.
It was rainy on the day she ran; pellucid liquid coming down heavily and filling the little village like a bowl, making what little greenery there was droop and shift in watery soil. She had tripped, ( pain shoots up her ankle and into her spine and up into her brain like electricity and it hurts so much it really really fucking hurts ) falling on her face and skinning her knee, and her eyes water. The girl bits into her lip, standing up shakily as if she were on her first legs, as if she were a fawn just learning how to stand, her brain stuck on her first objective: run and run and never go back because that man had ruined everything.
She did go back of course, her mother had found her in the forest and they spent the next three days in a motel. Same thing the next month, except she stayed with family friends; then the next month, Efua had ran just before her mother had called the police on that fucking man.
She had ran when they got back together.
She had ran when her mother got angry at her for hating that fucking man.
She'll keep running until her feet feel like lead and her eyes are finally dry from sorrow and misery and despair.
( she'll keep running when shes grown up too she'll keep running and running until her feet blister and those blisters pop and until her feet bleed and her bones wear down and until shes dragging herself from chipped and bleeding nails because she'll never want to stop and she'll never want to be around while that man is there and she'll never truly be happy just as long as that man is with her mother )
an. lmao my mom is still w/ that fucking asshole so :^/. but like, instead of running i bitch around online bc I don't have the energy 4 running
