['Breathe'] brighteyes

Putting my writings on his account from now on.

‘Breathe.’

Some lost command for over the top situations. Everything around him- rushing. He himself, scrambling constantly for a foothold. Grasping for life as his organs rebelled, then once more as the healing set in and dead tissue was rejected. In those times- in all times, these days- breaking away from all other life forms, and running. Fighting for some solace.

As a whole, living in a paradise did not need to be so difficult.

He sat high in the birch tree. Though referred to as a ‘bird’, his body denied the idea. Birds didn’t rest like this- perhaps cats did, though. Sprawled on his stomach, limbs dangling over the thick black-dashed branch he had eventually clawed up to, his muscles remained stiff even after the battle to scale the papery skinned behemoth. High shoulders rose and fell as he panted, meager ribs expanding and contracting in broken inhale.

Spinning vision. He didn’t want the rest of the world to follow that motion. Lids shut tightly over the lightgiving eyes, certain this would help.

The vertigo only worsened. Upside down, inside out, all around and nowhere to be found. The rollercoaster of feeling was consuming. And still, there was enough of him left to realize his ‘own’ laughter.

The real sort, too. The kind he actually hid, in light of the company he normally shared. Airy and wavering, and a laugh for the sake of laughing. A secret between just himself and the bird’s head that enclosed his own. Perhaps also with a doe, if she recalled.

The thought of her, the recent mention by a white stag, and distant memories of the last time he saw her were enough for him. Any stress the brief laugh had slid him out from under was crushing down again, demanding his attention. It hurt. Strained and snapped strings of muscle threatened with a variety of feeling, reminding diligently of the things he neglected, pined over, and promptly drowned when confronted with.

Heavy coal-colored wings shifted at his sides uncomfortably, the muscles at their bases tugging too tightly. There would be more damage if he didn’t calm. More shredded tissue and cracked bone. Blood was still dry deep in his throat. This wouldn’t do, and he truly feared that moment when vessels snap in that too familiar way, flooding the wrong parts of him with their liquid iron.

So, breathe.

The vertigo spiked as he cut off his rapid air supply, lips still poised in that half smile left from laughter. The feeling lessened as, slow and deep, he inhaled through his nose. The air was held a moment. Lips parted within the cage of the half-opened beak and, a slightly more hurried, expelled the used breath.

All was fine, he would lie to himself. The dizziness would take over again, and another heavy intake would be drawn to fill large lungs. Slower then, expulsion, just to steady him.

Slow breathing and a closed, upward stare against his eyelids into nothing.

Paradise? Had he really thought it that? For now, he would force belief. The anger of being here, being trapped, being confused and worried and all manner of other negativity could wait. The scent of dry grass and freshly claw-cut birch was more or less calling him, and the dull throb of all that hid beneath the surface of his skin, fur, and feathers was a threat.

One he would heed.

Inward, outward…
Inward, outward…

…his head lowered, the vertigo passing from his skull as if absorbed by the tree’s branch his chin connected with.

All would be fine, so long as he remembered to stay alive.
So long as he remembered to breathe.