“Paseo con sombrilla bajo la luna” bydmcart

I’m afraid of the moon falling. The silver shards that it rains down at times bounce off my umbrella; I shudder to think what would happen if the entire mass of rock can tumbling down. I take good care and always hold my umbrella up nice and straight, and no shards have ever come to contact with my skin.

I’m afraid of my tight rope snapping. I’ve learned the steps from the master of acrobatics, and he held my waist in the beginning until I understood the dynamics between weight and balance. Now, when I teeter, I think of his warm large hands caging my fluttering heart within my ribs, and I remain upright a few seconds more.

I’m afraid of the darkness of the night. It spills around me as if someone knocked over the ink-jar of the sky and scattered the liquid everywhere. The dark is punctuated here and there by the lights in the windows, the lights of strangers, the lights of strange houses that would never welcome my patchwork skirt or painted circus face.

The wind howls around my ears, and I duck and dance upon my rope, and my umbrella falls from my flailing hand. The shards of the moon rain down on me and hit my face with their cold wetness. The blackness of the night creeps around me and gobbles me like a massive shawl. I gain my balance, and my dignity, and my composure. My chest is heaving, my makeup is pooling under my chin, and one of my shoes is missing.

But something, at some point, has changed. I am naked of my umbrella and exposed to the world. The window lights glare at me as the darkness gives me a hug.  And I am no longer afraid.

~Angreek87