As the season tipped and the sunsets grew bolder (and more melancholy)—as her spirit soared above the clouds and peeked down at her life below—she woke up.

She woke up, and she noticed how absurdly blue the sky was.

How achingly purple the bruises on her heart—so beautiful not for their pain, but for their resilience.

She woke up and saw the blessing in everything—the breaking, the falling and most of all the standing up.

She woke up with a smile.

And she laughed!

How foolish she had been to mistake the misty gray shadows of sleep for the vivid dream-hues of reality! How foolish—

She laughed.

She didn’t realize—she didn’t realize she had been sleeping—until she woke up.

And now, awake, her heart races with possibilities. Awake, her skin bristles in the scirocco wind, pricked by the never-ending siren wail that woke her from her slumber. In this world, the rocks upon which the temptresses sit are shifting sands, and the waves that promise destruction offer metamorphosis instead.

She woke up, and she saw this.

She woke up and understood that she who drowns in sleep flies in waking.

The rocks that beckoned—menaced—in sleep disrobe, and she plunges her hands into the illusion. She is awake.

She woke up, and she was hungry—hungry enough to drink the waves and devour the dregs of sleep.

And when she had finished, she looked around her.

The sky so absurdly blue, above.

The sand silken gold, below.

The purple—anger fading now to incandescent violet—within.

She woke up, and she wanted to hold everything at once, but she was so full—so full that it dripped down her arms and slipped from her skin.

She woke up.

She had been sleeping.

She swallowed her sleep and ran after her racing heart.

Awake, she sees the world as it is. The sky is so absurdly blue, and she fills it.

She fills it.

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Relephant Read:

This is How a Wanderer Heals.

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Author: Toby Israel

Photos: Author’s Own

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