Ectothermal

It is many years now that this one moment sucked the air from me. That some small serpent that had been asleep in my head shifted and shook, then rattled its tail against the backs of my eyes. The heat in me recoiled, and when I was completely frozen, a volley of blunt-tipped arrows trembled through and shattered me.

I was a collection of shards walking around the gloaming city. In an instant I had grown something thin and elastic to hold all the pieces together, but I could feel them gnashing at their new faults. I was loose gravel in a spinning net, dropping grit and gristle where I walked.

Aren't I dead? Didn't I die back there? Perhaps I don't yet realize I'm dead. Perhaps my consciousness turned away at the wrong moment; or I didn't notice the sheet being pulled over my head; or I didn't feel my energetic self split from my body.

Isn't the light different? Hasn't the color of the world changed?

In time the pieces have fused together, but I still feel the constriction of this invisible fascia in which I am wrapped. Its purpose as a protective organ is gone. Capillaries lap and pulse at every surface, and my pink skin riddles at this opressive sheath that permits so little sensation.

I need to sweat and wriggle out. I need to feel the touch of your skin, the ribs and ridges of your fingertips, the burgundy depressions where your teeth just bit me, where your mouth - so warm - grips and grins at my chest.

Your warm palms and this breeze.

The ridges of your laughter.

The slight -- magnetic -- arc of your skin.

These shards of sunlight bounce from the water to dance across all of it, turning each insignificant spot to gold for just a moment.

posted by Ecto Thermal @ 9:19 PM