Angel wings
When I was a child I dreamed of flying. Over oceans, deserts and rain forests I flew, not on wings of soft white down but on wings of bone and stretched skin, twisting horns crowning my forehead. Every night was the same, I was looking for something, looking for home. When I was four I asked my teacher what she looked for when she flew at night, I asked her if her wings burned too and if her horns were capped with gold over the bone like mine. I even asked her if she wanted to put her hand in the fireplace like me, because fire reminded me of my dreams. Unsurprisingly she didn't take the news of my dreams well and she sent me to a child psychiatrist.
It took me a long time to realise that the longer I kept telling the nice lady with the big fake smile the truth, the longer I would have to go see her. So aged five I started to lie. My winger were angel wings, my travels were over an imaginary land full of bubblegum and pink and sunshine. They pronounced me cured and sent me on my way, I remember practically bolting out the door away from Mrs Happy and her big fake smile, I hated them telling me I was sick, telling me people don't dream of looking for a home on fire, people are scared of fire and they said I should be too, like a normal person. Someone once told me one of the most common dreams a human can have is flying. I wonder if I am so different from you after all, our dreams are so similar, we dream of home and flight, so why did you tell me I was special?
When I was six my dreams because reality. In those first few months after the bones in my back split open, after I spent days screaming on the floor in a puddle of my own blood as bone and sinew forced there way out of my back and skull, after my mother tried to murder me because she thought the devil himself was forcing his way out of my body, you tried to comfort me. The only person in the whole world with wings you said, you showed me pictures of angels and told me that was what I was. That I was Gods special little angel. Did it ever occur to you that I might see that I resembled more the devils that they fought? You were all my family, in my mind mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts wore lab coats, spoke in a funny way and ran tests on my body. It was normal, I thought that was normal. I never thought you might have a real family at home, that you might have real a daughter. I wonder, when was it that I became a monster in your eyes, when I stopped being the quiet little girl with an unfortunate looking set of wings. Was it when my eyes turned black? Or was it when I grew fangs? Maybe its when my fingernails grew to be claws or my horns grew from little stubs to forearm length swords. You were my family and I loved you, still love you, forever. Now we can all play happy family's again, like when I was little, don't worry! I survived when you cut me open as I begged you not to, when you looked so coldly into my eyes as I screamed, you who used to be my father, who used to buy me little gifts and call me his little miracle. Who used to let me call him Daddy. I survived without anaesthetic because YOU thought it would ruin your test results, I survived...So stay still, I'm sure you will too. I'll make you fly Daddy, i'll give you wings like mine, like you always wanted.
I don't dream of flying anymore, I don't dream at all.