Warm Arms

She pressed her tiny back into the hard window frame. The curtains shivered across the sill and outside, a shadow tree whipped a wild dance against the copper sky.

Dark crept slowly towards her, a hovering cloak swallowing the last glowing drops of honey. Dark sliding gently around her slim shoulders, a mask that faded lines and washed away the colour with fine ash. A dark that suffocated and whispered, stretching deep inside.

Sitting hunched, already she could feel the gentle rhythm of the night, its breath warm in her ears the closeness of the secret place that held her rigid in its grip.

She knew the sound she strained to hear, over the restless breeze, over deafening silence, over rivers of words racing through her, each tendon stretched, nipped, waiting, waiting…..

Sleep hung like a terrible presence, heavy, pressing, insistent it called, faithless in its promise of oblivion. Velvet warm, like her mother’s arms, arms that dried like powder at a touch with soft eyes that fell back into the dark.

She listened, there it was a voice crying, somewhere distant the echo of footsteps always a little ahead. Round her head floated words never spoken, a last chance always in the distance a faint promise unfulfilled.

She watched as the door slid quietly open, soft grey moonlight made a ghost of her mother, with tears softly falling and lips moving words unspoken, whispered only to the night.

Her breath caught in her throat, it was all longing for a soft caress, the kiss of warm tears, warm arms. It pressed her forward right to the edge, the edge of the sill. She willed her hand to reach out, pale in the grey moon shining, legs so heavy, wooden like the cold stiff lip of the sill.
Shrinking back into the shadows she held close the dream of warm arms.

She could have called out, nearly did, the words almost hovering on her lips, then she remembered……….

Her mother’s eyes held no warmth, deep water floating slowly through her.

What did she see out there, out in the dark, dark sky?

And sleep, sleep would never come again or dreams. She stirred restless on the sill, dreams she remembered dreams, dreams of her mother’s tears on a summers evening where dark had crept slowly towards her. An evening so warm the window was just a little open and the breeze that hung sweet and heavy with roses.

She had only leaned a little on the glass and seen darkness pressed hard against the wood, cool on her face. Pressing forward to make out the faded colours, close to the edge of the sill. And dark, dark like a cloak had swallowed her.

She fell so gently so delicate like a doll she thought, the breeze silent and such small drops of warm dark blood.

How she longed for those warm arms and last words unspoken, silent tears on the windowsill. And now, now she would stay here forever but no-one it seemed would know.