She Was a Fairy

She curls up in darkness

Like an unborn child in the womb

She floats

In waters of symbiosis

An exchange of dark and light

Forming the in-between

The dawn and dusk

The grey areas

Where no one dares venture

Indecisiveness

The very essence of her soul

And now to morning light

She rises

Cracks open the shell

Of her blanket cocoon

Emerges from her butterfly chrysalis

Transformed, she has wings

Frail and gossamer

Wrinkled and useless

They rest against her shoulder blades

Like crumpled wet newspaper

Carefully she unfolds them

Like origami cranes

Like love notes passed in class

Gently

She must not rip them

Or she may never fly

She stretches them out

Like sheets of parchment

That ache for the pen

Like stretched canvas

Awaiting paint

Their tips brush the ceiling

Prepared for flight

She yawns, smiling at the sunrise

And stretches her arms high

To work the sleep from her bones

Her bare breasts lift

Just enough

To expose the birthmark

In the fold beneath and beside

Her left breast

Remnant perhaps

From a shot through the heart

In a past life

She shakes her hair back from her face

It cascades down her back

Between her new wings

A waterfall of auburn waves

A crown upon her fair head

Neither brown

Nor red

Dancing indecisively

In light and shadow

Her light eyes

Both as sharp and piercing

As they are soft and poetic

Unsure and indecisive

Even in their colour

But undoubtedly hers all the same

Her very nature is in-between

Betwixt in her otherness

Some of this

Some of that

A tightrope walker

On the horizon

Between night and day

Between black and white

Between life and death

She is

Both nothing

And everything

And everything is pleasing to her

She laughs at the cloud shapes

Floating serenely passed her window

And that laugh is the sound of church bells

Ringing across the village square

On Christmas day

Deep and resounding

Warm and musical

Full of secrets and memories

Both strong and frail

She's ready to fly now

One foot poised on the window sill

Prepared to leap

Her wings twitching with anticipation

But for some reason

She stops

She looks back

Wondering

At this world she emerged in

Unsure of who she is

Or why she's here

She stands too long in the dawning light

From the open window

Her wings grow dry and brittle

While she stands pondering

Finally as doubt fills her

Those silky gossamer wings

Turn to powder and ash

Which floats away

Across the village square

As the church bells ring

Heralding Christmas morning

She was a fairy

The epitome of all the in-between in the world

Incarnation of dawn and dusk

Shadows that grow long

Born of sunrise and sunset

Neither night nor day

But now she's just a girl

Who can't make up her mind