Hunger by The Wavesinger

Hunger

The light hurts.

She curls into the smallest shape she can be, but all the light inside her, the brightness-sharpness-glow she has gorged on, aches. Inside her belly, it screams, an insistent cry that was but a whisper when she first swallowed the pure-light-blessed-beautiful but has, slowly, over the passage of time grown into the loud siren-call-hurt.

Sometimes, she wanders out of the dark places into the new-strange-change, and the warm-laugh-girl-long washes over her until the ache is almost soothed. Then she watches the ball-big-fire-woman dance across the blue-dome-made-siblings until she vanishes, and then the pain starts again.

The woman-sky-burning-hot she can almost see. Almost see her stretching out a hand, reaching out to touch her, like she did, once, in land-bright-blessed-garden, before the hunger came. The hunger, and the restlessness, and the need for light-break-shadow-heart drove her out of valley-made-singing-place. But before that, everything was new-dawn-fresh, and she still remembers feather-light-laugh-brilliant and the girl with her terrible, too-bright smile. The girl who is in the sky now, forever and ever, where she is safe and cannot be touched. Where she helps, and soothes, and washes away hurt.

Every day, she watches, again and again, the world glow red. There is blessed relief when she watches. It is almost as if the woman-in-sky-ball is reaching out again.

(There are strange pangs in the depths of her heart. She recognizes them for the old hunger. No matter the pain, she will have to go hunting, and soon.)