a Clockwork Rabbit

I’m not finished.

It was summer all over again, not this mosquito and responsibility infested summer of my later years, but then… back when my laugh was love and my vengeance was eternal.

I wasn’t thinner then, I wasn’t smarter, I wasn’t quicker… I was fierce.

Baby faced and laughing.

I stood under a copper bowl sky and missed the burnt lapis of Once Upon A Time in a place I called home.

if I was quick I could have rang the sky like a bell. Sly and out of the corner of my eye I could have… if I was quicker.

Instead I told my daughter to do it. To close her eyes and make the heavens ring.

She has arms longer than forever, she’s plush with youth and flushed with beauty. I’m breathless sometimes at her potential. I’m stunned most of the time by how sudden and fulfilled she is.

I’m scared of her, for her, with her. I slip her hands into mine and want to tell her everything I’ve ever experienced. I want her to know that all devils aren’t in the wishing wells…that happiness doesn’t have a name, that there’s no one out there good enough to break her heart.

I want to tell her about my dark times about survival and recovery, I want to tell her about all my sins and how she can avoid them, I want to promise that nothing will ever hurt her, I want o promise her that I will always be there to seriously abuse anyone who even thinks of hurting her…

instead, as brown eyes wide as the skies of home rise to mine I tell her “I love you, kid” she grins, that straight, bright, open fresh and amazing smile.

“Yeah, I love  you too.”

I want her promise that this will be how it always is. That’ she’ll understand and she’ll never change, and she’ll never forget this moment under a vibrating summer sky.