BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS

Isla Reavley

Meliai

She existed softly, treading thyme meadows, her mind spinning a slow ballet, dusting lamps that filled the sky, sweeping away the planets that dared to cup her cheek.

She bent branches into birds that sang in clock chimes and flew on puppet strings, clutching in a crude grip, laying calcified kisses on her eyes, their grained throats white like the stars that swam in her tea. She stirred them in like sugar and breathed the nebula steam, then sipped and poured seeds, swallowed leaves and chewed thistles until she was conker eyed –round cheeks translucent and swollen with sap.

Her irises darkened, pouring sloe-berry tears. She screamed at the birds and the sky and the trees as petals pushed up into her fingernails and her freckles bled into rivers that frothed beneath her feet, snapping at her heels. Her birds dropped like stones – wings long splintered, struck and sinking to rot and churn in the raging ground.

Trees creaked and collapsed. Bluebell skin hardened to bark. The Earth bubbled up like water, meeting her, embracing her, and pulling her down and down and down, until she was only just enough out of her depth.