A breath, a footstep

A breath, a footstep. Nothing- void all around, life lines drifting like broken threads of a spider's web in an inexistent wind, and jealous eyes throbbing as they watch those who have materialized on those lines like pearls of dew, sliding upward, safe, comfortable.

Differences all around, necessary changes in the hues of the iris, in the curl of the lip, in the flutter of the heart. Must we be obliged to act in accordance to what they prefer? Oh, but what we do not understand is that we are the ones who force ourselves to set these boundaries: what not to cross, what not to say, what would spell utter failure.

Have we no trust in what we are? We speak as though there was a coded way to sound attractive: but to whose ears ? How to please those that are but shadow and enigma… those who we seek to impress, those who deserve attention. We want them. We want what they have.

Perhaps it is not only them, but this perfect way of living that we adore. We strive for the long shimmering thread that they effortlessly glide across, funambulists with eyes half-closed and golden slippers; we who have our naked feet planted on the ground, smudged with gunk, we who reach out our pale arms for those sky high tresses.

The spectre's eyes glow in the dark like two pinpricks of ephemeral light, flickering, ready to fade at any time. She stares mutely up at the funambulist, high above, so very far from the ground, so very untouchable. She knows she could never reach him, as she lifts her arm; a simple ripple in the darkness, a crease in this great black cloak of a world. Eyes are scattered everywhere like shards of a broken mirror, like a reunion of fallen stars, huddling together sometimes, other times sitting in lonesome solitude, watching the attraction in the sky.

The funambulists have limbs that differentiate from the darkness; long stretches of pale light, bending and folding and curling like so many ribbons, sometimes intertwining with each other, other times dropping down, down till another thread catches them, or until they plunge into the black earth and become one of your accursed few.

The funambulists can move- they can dance, they can leap, they can spell out grace with their long elegant strides. You could watch them eternally: how attractive they are, as their postures coil and straighten, shaking back their gorgeous manes of hair, soft glowing curls tumbling down their shoulder blades; those two stumps where their wings were ripped from them sometime in their aerial existences.

The funambulists can make noise- their mouths open like little keyholes in those long white faces, and they take pleasure in shattering the heavy silence of the world with hurtling octaves and cascading chromatics, ever light, ever musical. Everything that trickles from those mouths is beautiful- every droplet that you manage to gather has its magnificent luster, and you treasure each tiny orb as they shine as fiercely as trapped galaxies in the middle of your palm.

The funambulists… the funambulists can feel- often you see their hands flying out and pecking at the other's shoulder, passing over the other's face as swiftly as a pen stroke. Often you see their thin legs swaying dizzily to and fro as they run after one another, mouths open in lamenting wails or bubbling hilarity. Often you see them arching their white bodies into letters of despair, limbs crooked and held out to form runes in the sky that you can only wonder at, eyelids shining like pearl skin protecting their eyes from the darkness of the world as glints of sadness sneak down their cheeks.

The funambulists… can they love? Can their hearts flare as fiercely as yours does, when you watch their antics melting the monotony, when your evanescent eyes dart to catch each swinging limb, each differing expression, each waver of the iridescent eye…

Your gaze wanders. Sometimes you get to assist the spectacle of a funambulist descending towards your lowly world, foot sliding down a fiberglass thread, one white hand extending towards the shaking remains of several insignificant fingers, camouflaged in the darkness; only to be illuminated by the glow of its white counterpart, skin seeming to take form as the nacre spreads over the palm, the wrist, the entire arm… and so the lowly creature is pulled from its black earth, slender as a weed, frail but too determined to follow its savior to let itself drop back into the darkness.

Does each pair of eyes secretly yearn this, you wonder? You can feel this black orb in the centre of your chest pulsate with a semblance of life as you watch a funambulist lope near you. Do you yearn for them to bend down, to give you some kind of proof that they have heard your silent plea?

All this time… have you simply been waiting for your turn? Or will you be the first to hoist yourself from this dank earth and weave your own thread…?