Meadow

he watched them float, their wings slicing against cloud, almost disappearing: eyes cast to the dawn, and it would be missed, feathers bent to brumous skies, and the absurdity of ice-fog. all that was left was birdsong, the very few that remained through the toils of winter. the sun was faint behind the thickened veil, almost as though the film between reality and dream had thinned to paper. easily sliced, easily pierced by watchful eyes and the trembling of a heart.

he stood where he oft stood.

a cast-off, a waylaying sailor left to drift. his heart thumped with every throaty rumble thrown by frothing tides. their rollicking filled the corner of the meadow he preferred, closed to the sea, beyond the eyes and company of others. he languished not in the serenity of this hovel but was not in want for the huddled masses beyond. his heart lurched, tightened by the abduction of his ambitions, throttled by his lack of interest in returning. he'd lost himself, as he'd had times before. mind touched by the malaise that troubled his mother so often before. try as he might, its steel links hung heavy at his throat, at his might.

it made the soul stone, and any want for growth was but a hammer against it.

a splinter, a crack; but it remained the same, yet dangerously close to decimating any sense of identity or self.

he would remain, the meadows, a ghost; bidden only to watch, to wait. the dawn eased into day, and yet the fog had yet to lift, and the sunlight yet to slay the clouds growing ever the more ominous. snow will come, he noted, watching them darken and roll across the heavy sky.