Turtle of a Girl

i was at rite aid. this is chock full o' metaphors. too much? -enjoy-

 

The little girl in her not-old-enough body and simple dress stood waiting. Her friend speaking of things too wild to consider; safety. Seeds of warning planted; struggle to survive; wither in their loose soil. A non-specific man in an omen-esque shirt stood ahead. He turned aside and the lamb walked forth.

 

“You should tell your parents,” he spoke. “It’s the right thing to do.”

 

Words that landed with a crash of broken glass as the walls shattered. Bricks fell to the floor, ripping the skin from her body; causing her to molt. To be reborn as a phoenix from the ashes. Spinning through a Dorothy and Toto moment. On the other side of her, through central retinal, vitreous, ora serrata, and out the mirror. She blinked. Sheet rock and insulation fell from where the sky should be. A cocaine and sugar filled dust settle on her shoulders. She blinked. Chemicals in strips and contained in tubes; bottled illumination popped, raining down a psychedelic rain. Her wool shriveled and fell in spools and sweaters around her feet. She blinked. A glass orb rolled down her blood filled cheek; getting trapped in the crease in the corner of the lips that never curled. She blinked.

 

“No,” she replied as she paid for her box of love gloves. Beneath the snowy wool and simple dress was the turtle of a girl. No paintbrush tickled her back; simple and camouflaged, she thrived in her woman-and-man-made shell.

 

A curl tickled the crease in the corner that trapped the glass orb; she tasted the brine. She blinked.