Comfortably sprawled on a gingham square, my mismatched limbs lie at my side, adorning my broken-doll-esque figurine of a body. Unhinged at the jaw, my shattered face is locked in an eternal screaming match with the sky, yet the only company to my ear is the chirping of grasshoppers and robins. 

The mellifluous ambiance percolating through my ears is the soundtrack to the movie before my eyes. The fractured blue sky is falling in pieces around me; blues and golds and whites befriending me on my grass estate. As time falls from the clouds in sunny rays, my head continues to drink in the ground, my venturing hair bordering the line of what is grass and what is not.

My hands feel nothing but the absence crinkling my skin, and my nose smells nothing but the sweet incoherence of memories and quiescent requiescence. 

Despite the dull shine of contentedness, I am happy.

Despite my shattered eyes and stolen heart, I am happy.

Despite the scintillae of blues and golds and whites around me, I am happy.

With my eyes glossed over with tarnished optimism, the pieces of sky seem to greet me with every pleasant caress with which they meet the ground. Soon my gingham and grass are gone, and I’m left swimming in my new sea of blues and golds and whites.

Despite my antique stature, my lonely, delicate limbs keep me afloat. Under the cascading sky, the image of the end seems welcomed yet timid. The planes pillaging my peripheral dream are radiating thunder as they deliver the heavens to me. Lying stoic in the shrapnel, the blues and golds and whites beside me tell me one thing.

That’s just the planes’ way of saying I love you.

What?

The planes. They miss you up there, so they’re giving you what little beauty belongs to them—in hopes that it will make you less lonely. They’re sorry that the thunder is so loud, but they hope your happiness makes the noise seem worth it.

The love notes from the planes decorate my atmosphere with kind stares and fervent smiles—the smile you give with love. As the blues and golds and whites continue to whisper to me, the thunder of the sky pretends to act meek in lieu of eavesdropping on our conversation.

Yet, forbidden words are esoteric only to those who oblige themselves to listen.

The blues and golds and whites embrace me with their fragile words. The blues and golds and whites see into my shattered eyes like stained-glass windows. The blues and golds and whites smile and stare and sing—all for me. 

My quickening heartbeat emits its own thunderous graciousness to the planes for gifting me with the blues and golds and whites that found beauty in my grass and gingham. 

They say you’re welcome.