Thrill

...take these broken wings and learn to fly/all your life/you were only waiting for this moment to arrive....

We return to the office all disheveled, I, drenched in sweat and grinning, with grass on my clothes and hair, Steve wearing a self-satisfied smirk.

My hands and arms are naked. He insisted I remove my jewelry. My whole body aches, in a good way. I'll be sore in the morning.

We've been flying.

Well, I have. He stood on the ground and took pictures.

He brought me to the High Flyers Club, where I was welcomed, instructed, and "let off."

Thirty feet in the air, triumphantly shrieking at the top of my lungs, flying by my knees, upside down in a split arched within inches of whiplash, falling, falling, falling, somersaulting off the edge of the net to stagger and collapse in worshipful gratitude at Steven's feet.

He puts the empty translucent bronze skin of a cicada in my hair.

My hands are blistered. I have bruises on the backs of my knees. My ribcage feels shattered. I don't care. I haven't had this much fun with my body since MotionFest.

If joy has movement, this is it.

Trapeze. Trapeze! TRAPEZE!