Polaris in Miniature

Polaris in Miniature

It's the waiting that hits all the raw places, that singes the parts of your soul that aren't too scarred to feel the sharp burn of it. You recall, distinctly, watching her as she waits in that in-between place–the alone space between ending it all and climbing down from that roof–her face redder from embarrassment than the cold, eyes narrowed at her father, his face also red, from too many drinks for too many nights for too many years.

Her arms go up and down, slowly at first and then faster–a swan testing her wings for the first time. The wind picks up. You see her see you. The stairwell stinks of human piss. Dark, dank, narrow. You squeeze your small frame, finally–gasping–through the tiny hatch at the top, lungs expelling the too fast flight to the top so that she, on the roof, doesn't have too much time in the in-between, the waiting.

You slide down, your boots' slippery soles not catching on the newly fallen snow. Her arms are covered in it now, the brand new white of it, and they are moving ever faster, in time with the increasingly frantic screams of her father, the belt wielder.

You skid to a stumbling stop behind her. You hear her hear you. She turns, brown eyes boring into yours, burning with anger, no light in them. A shake of the head, wordless, arms frozen mid-swing. And you see it then, the sky reaching down to swallow her, darkly but softly, reaching down to take her away from the misplaced commas in her story, the inverted tears she cannot bite back, the purple welts on her skinny back and neck, not ever, not ever low enough to be hidden by the ugly brown dress of her uniform.

You see her fade into the inky blue-black, graceful and long-limbed, stretching her arms towards the one star we shared, the one thing we share still. Through the in-betweens. Through the waitings.

---

_{img credit via pixabay}

**********************
With many thanks to the fantastic folks at the writers block fiction workshop. You can find your way there by clicking below: