BrknWngs

A butterfly devoid of flight.1

A name devoid of vowels.2

A person devoid of care.3

There’s only so much that a person can sustain before they crumble and fall under the autocracy of another. After countless years of shouting, hurling abuse, physical scars and screams etched onto her mind she only had one place to turn.4

She turned to herself. She folded herself inwards into a cocoon spun of delicate threads of strength and prayed that one day she would emerge and soar up to the sky where she could take her rightful place among the stars and angels. Inside she listened to herself and blocked out the hateful words that reverberated outside of her safety net. She contemplated and debated with herself and inside the rounded walls, love was formed. But it wasn’t enough. She needed external love as well. And so with her heart on her winged sleeve, she broke free of the walls surrounding her, pushed outwards towards the cerulean blue sky above and…and… and faltered. Her umber colourings shone against the sun, and the burnished red that floated at the height of her body shook with the passion and rage of failure.5

She had waited so long for this moment, and now it had arrived she couldn’t reach it. Nothing could undo the years of torment and anguish that she had been through and as she strove to fly higher, her broken wings bound her to the earth.6

The lack of vowels, the lack of sound that she had for so long cultivated and commanded was now her nemesis…Shhh….7

She rested. She thought. She wanted. She needed. She craved. She moved her body into the warmth of the sun and allowed her taste buds to dance over the sweetest honey. And finally she returned to her cocoon. She tucked herself up tight, away from the prying eyes, where no one could see that she was missing her vowels, that she had brknwngs and this time she wrote.8

She poured forth a torrent of words and she expressed herself in ways she didn’t know possible. She picked up a pen, she became a scribe and she realised that finally, she could fly.9