@veridical sent : [ 📞 ] ‘ i’ll stay on the phone until you fall asleep. ’ 🥺 / phone calls , not accepting .
she thinks of birds when she thinks of him. she thinks, specifically, of that time grandpa found the skeleton of a dead bird in the garden, what was left after the dogs had chewed him up —— he’d grabbed a bone, split it in half, pointed at the cavities inside. she’d ached at the hollowness, how EXCRUCIATING she thought it had to be, to walk around with a void in your bones. he said they needed it for flying, or else they’d be too heavy. sometimes, when she’s half awake but drifting into a realm where her resistance is futile at best, she thinks of webb and finds herself wondering if he’s as frail as that bird in the garden —— if his bones are hollow ; if he would be capable of flying, the cage not withstanding. now he speaks lovely words into the phone and she thinks of nocturnal birds, how her mother used to despise their songs ( said it sounded ominous: birds were supposed to sing at dawn, at the birth of light on the horizon, not the darkness, not the void ). she finds it calming, now — the delicate chirp poured into her ear, as if this could be a fairytale, a cartoon : a world of magic. throw out the horrors, leave the metaphors instead. in a version of life, this could be a palace and the two of them the forever youthful royals surrounding themselves with roses and birds.
“ can you tell me a story ? ”. she’s unaware of how childish her voice sounds. tiredness has crept up on her, not the consequence of fatigue but the exhaustion that comes from peeling herself from reality, detaching from the physical plane. a blown out balloon, lying on her side still enough that one might have to hold a mirror to her mouth to prove she still lives — but there’s a curve to her lips when he speaks in the receiver, a shade of rose flickers on her cheek when she sighs. she’s alive — and it might be him she clings to, when she feels it all too heavy for her bones, which are not hollow, and are not meant to fly.
“ one with birds ”, her murmur trailing off —— eyes closed, she lets herself be coaxed back by that in-between.
