beliefs

humming a tune that rattled her bones as though she were a bottle of pills, she counted all the times she'd been a burden in her life. she figured it equaled nothing less than her number of breaths. laying in bed and surrounded by pillows, she tried to quiet the sound; but her body betrayed her. guts moaned and she huddled into herself to silence them.

when she walked, it was with a careful precision she'd developed from balancing on ledges in her dreams. night after night, she withstood the trembling of her aching frame. like a ship being tossed, her bones creaked under the strain of the storm inside her. she wondered how long she could keep it restrained.

the only calm she'd ever tasted was the center of the storm; and now she felt her own hurricane twisting the wilderness within. she found her beliefs, the redwoods of her being, uprooted with the abruptness of a fitful toddler tossing her head to the floor. it would hurt. it did hurt. but the damage couldn't be assessed until a quiet crept in and lulled the thing inside her to sleep; and sleep is what she begged for her forest of dirt.