Her hips draw patterns in the air as she dances.
She is lightness and air.

The wildflowers catch their reflection in her laughing eyes.
She is lightness and air.

The raindrops scatter kisses across her lips, her cheeks, her breasts.
She is lightness and air.

The people around see the feline stretch of her neck—she is wild, they think.
They hear the unapologetic burst of her song—she is crazy, they assume.
They brush the technicolor cacophony of her stomping feet—she is other, they whisper.

No, they are wrong.

She is simply free.

And in her freedom she is lost.

This, they do not see. The muscles that ache after a night of revelry. The voice that saves its strength, that it might shout louder than all the rest for an hour. The thick layer of grime upon the soles of her feet, which, too tired to clean, she slips between her sheets.

She is free—indeed—but true freedom is more than lightness and air; it is darkness, dirt, fire that burns and water that erases everything in its path.

Such is her freedom.

An elemental labyrinth from which none emerge alive. A life of dancing joy and pain, always both. She is free in the totality of it all, but this they do not see.

Yes, she is free. And wild and crazy and different—maybe—but who are we to say?

Yet, freedom is not so simple.

She is lightness and air, but lightness has its own shadows, and air falls like rain, sometimes.

Such is her freedom.

But this, they do not see it.
~

Relephant Read:

She Woke Up.

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Author: Toby Israel

Images: Used with permission from Paula Barkmeier

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