The light you give off
did not come from a pelvis.

Your features did not begin in semen.
Don't try to hide inside anger
radiance that cannot be hidden.

-Rumi


Her fingers brush the glossy wood railing - she pauses for a moment in her concurrent yet gushing thoughts to appreciate the old-school craftmanship of the warm piece of wood, worn to a shine by all of the hands that had come before her. She is skipping up the stairs now, but knows by the time she reaches her destination she will be puffing slightly and wondering why she never paced herself.

Images of a winter day short-stopped in front of her through windows set into each landing. She saw the snow making it's descent in fat, succulent flakes as she stopped for a breath - it wouldn't do to arrive with a sheen - and she flashed back to a time, not so long ago, that she brushed such fat flakes from his hat, taking her glove off to cup his jaw in her hand so that she could use her thumb to skim off the condensing crystals that had dusted his long lashes. She had looked into his eyes then, something that was hard for her to do, and had found all of the different inflections that life had left in their hazel discs. She knew then how judgemental and wrong she had been, but knew at the same time that it was time to move along...there was no back-peddling anymore.

She came back to the surface of reality and realized that she had dallied for too long...daydreaming was such a luxurious bad habit and she couldn't afford it right now. As she continued her climb upward - halfway there - she remembered how powerful the edge of his jaw had felt in her palm and how absolutely she surrendered to the thought of his trust in her hands. Her dismay came over how quickly she dismissed that power and her ability to handle it.

Her step slowed to a trudge and all of a sudden she felt like a pack mule...very useful but totally expendable.