floating on black clouds

My lack of desire worries me, she says. To be honest, her lack of desire worries me even more and I see her floating up on black clouds. It worries me when she turns inside only to see a tar baby staring back at her, wrestling with it leaves her black and blue. It worries me to see her trudging along in her black canvas shoes with black shoestrings. I have witnessed it when the balance of all things in her little circle flips itself all out of proportion and she is balancing on a thin string amongst black clouds.

I want to scream, she says, in a strangely calm manner. I see red. It is when she screams silently I get worried. She is losing her grip and going back to a place where it is just her, alone, and she stops living. No one can get in, and she brings out her scissors to cut all strings. I see her retreating and I reach out. I try to hold her hand, so she can feel skin on her skin. Not tar. Isolation on black clouds turn all things black. Oh how I get worried when she starts seeing grey.

It has been a while since she saw grey. Life has been in colour for a while, and then the mat was pulled out from under her. I see her now struggling to stand, she is beginning to float.

Numbness radiates inside out, a numbness that aches, she says. And tears stream down my face. My extended hand may not be enough to pull her up from either side. The tar baby stirs and fights back and she has lost the energy to wrestle. I want to step in and kick it out, but how. I may drown in there with her. I want to stay out here, out where the black clouds are just a view, and I am still walking, not floating.

I am turning around, and hope, she follows me. After all, my hand is always extended.