Idyll by Blake L. Bell

In my dream, a woman stands tall in a leveled field. The plants trampled, the wildlife dead in heaps. I trace the curve of a familiar arch in prints pressing the dirt. There she stands, a proud destroyer, marveling. 

Her arms fan wide in the stillness. The wind whips up strands of my hair one by one until I stand, a medusa on loose earth pulsating, suspended above shaking ground. Out of her fingers spring new life, green and yellow peek out of decay. Unfamiliar birds sing strange notes in the distance. Reformation, rebirth. I long to reach out, to pull her close, demand her trample me, line my body with her prints, stand over me, marvel. 

When I wake, I walk my fingers up and down my unbroken skin and howl for sleep to bring her back. To take me, break me, make me.