Creative Writing

Embrace

Two energies come together

like a tea cup

just cool enough to press firmly against an open palm.

Security

but not a blanket,

not just thrown over you and tucked in at the corners.

An active entanglement that grips and protects,

that calms and warms,

that syncs.

Connections forged

Accepted and branded through muscle memory,

adjusted and then settled like puzzle pieces.

Surrender

A white flag

that admits too much and apologizes too little

Touch

The intimate tale of exposure

To be vulnerable

To be weak

To wrap yourself into another who wraps themselves into you.

Spirited

In a crack in the wood on the floor to her right, she wedged a stick of incense at an angle that wouldn’t risk her sheets catching fire. Shifting the water to her left side, almost exactly covering her old water stain, and the crystal right in front of her knees, she created a circle, that she stood up and sat in the middle of. She sat comfortably still facing the open window. She couldn’t see out of it, but she’d memorized that view by moonlight and daylight for as long as she was tall enough to see through it. Occasionally, a car would ride by creating a gust of air that always seemed to find and rustle the longest hairs on her head. She used to hang chimes there, but not everyone likes chimes.

“Yemi. I’m home.”

She twitched and opened her eyes. His voice wasn’t even loud but it filled the space and carried throughout as if the walls’ loyalty personally carried it to each corner.

“I’m coming!” she called back. Her voice instead divided, half carried out the window while the other half swallowed by the old wood. She quickly grabbed a match and struck the side of the box—overcoming the gray blend with orange blaze. She bowed to the fire and lit the incense, allowing the breeze to blow it out naturally. The smell of vanilla wafting gently to start as the flame evens out. Yemi unfolds a piece of paper and shifts it toward the moon streak so that she can see.

With the guidance of air

I become light and blow

From this place, find me a home

And let me go

She whispered the chant more forcefully the second time, looking up to the window. From her angle she could see stars, a few wispy clouds and every color between dark blue and black. “Let me go” she repeats into the wind and closes her eyes.