Cruel Intentions

by Lana Bella

She is here, and she is elsewhere, back in another time maybe, with a blindness running through the body inside out, as if she is waiting in the shadows of her own life.

A whiff of salt dangles in the morning air; its weight is less than two whispers. Such a slight dispersion that flourishes at daybreak belongs to the newly sprouted leaves and cruel intentions.

She flicks the blues jutting from her shoulder blades like a discarded virtue, while the ocean eats breakfast and wipes spittle from its lips. A blackbird clings to puffs of cloud, long wings stroke the vertical pitch of the sun, leaving tiny flecks of gold to fall upon pale hair.

How simpler it would be for her to get lost behind the dark as incandescence drifts its farewell down her limbs, leaving all sensory in a fog of percussive isolation.

But why does she need to see and understand a lesser version of herself when the wind presses cold against the skin and the sea breaks easily over her bones. She will wait once more, at least for the moment to realize what was already there.