Knew not confinement (Vignette )

The word you might use to describe me would be: lesbian, a charting author, or something in between. I was drawn by the way she was moving on her feet, yet I knew that alone did not set her apart. She pushed quick shifts like a half breath that never became steps. Her shoulders were perched high, covering her neck with a kind of guarded confidence. The candy coloured crystals held in the jewelleries, blinked a glint in the light; They finished the question her lips wouldn't speak.

Her eyes darkened with eyeliner but softened to me with their wrinkles. Her hair flicks, licking above her ear and revealing nothing more. With a ding in her heart, she thanked me for writing poetry. She hadn't read my poems, yet she knew I wrote to breathe, and in that shared understanding I knew not a room, I knew not confinement. She knew how much confidence it would give me to keep working...

But butterflies don't last. I overthrew the image I had of her in my head and focused on the layers covering her figure; I placed an earring in each ear as I faced the mirror. I glued thoughts like stickers on the things I hated about the way I looked. She told me those earrings were made for me: I was lucky to have my husband think of me as the apple of his eyes — that was how those earrings became a gift to me.

~Caitlin Charlton ~

A/N: I wrote this piece to challenge the idea that contemporary writing ignores older prose styles. My goal was to blend modern themes with time-honored techniques from literary tradition, specifically the deep focus on a character's inner thoughts and the use of vivid sensory detail. Thanks for reading if you made it this far♥️🤗🙏🏽🖤.

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