and let me kick you off a bungee

There was nothing here, nothing anywhere. It was a quiet darkness, a familiar shift of winds against fresh skin dusted with red sands and white freckles. It was simply black, weeks of corrupt sight left hopelessness in its wake, despairing at the idea of knowing I will never see again. Those few moments of raw, unexpected bliss, where the sun was brilliant against the rough lines of Momma, where she seemed so soft (so calm) before the storm. It was so sudden, the curves of tender features falling away to reveal sharp edges and eager teeth, seeking to take away that soothing light. The green of the grass, the gentle spattering of flowers kissing at my body, the blue of the sky and cool winds pushing against the trees—

It was taken away quickly and instantaneously, not a moment of hesitation as the warmth within Momma's tired eyes turned into something sour and disgusting, hatred. And with her fury went my sight, lost were all those possibilities of a pleasant childhood, swallowed by unadulterated fear.

The pain swallowed me up as the life I'd only just been given flooded into the empty sockets and washed over my face, granted my first look at pain within moments of my first look at life. Oblivious and unable to understand, I suffered beneath the weight of Momma and laid slick with her sins, given precious moments to admire the world before it's wrenched from me.

I hold desperately to this sight of Momma looming over me, a precious calm before the disaster struck. It's all that I can envision, all that I see in the back of my mind when I reach out for something, anything. But even those few seconds are not enough to last forever, beginning the painful process of fading away as each day passes. I can feel it slipping between my fingers, dripping down into the oily black pool of nothing that swallows up my body greedily. Soon enough I will live without it, a blur of light against a vast darkness, a violent plea ("I don't want to be left alone.") as I realize that eventually it will leave me. What will I do then, when I cannot remember the greens and blues of the world around me, of the red flooding my sight and the flashes of chestnut and ivory as everything was taken away?

There is nothing here for me, and there may never be. I have been placed into a world where I am nothing but a burden, an extra piece that hangs onto the hip of a woman incapable of caring for me. She holds me close to her every night, refuses to let go even as I squirm out of sheer panic (blood red consumes my vision, I cry out in anguish), determined not to let me escape her grasp. I have come to accept this, to lie completely still in her presence as though movement may trigger another tragedy. She leaves me be otherwise.

I find that it's even worse to be without anyone at all, where I'm just a single body among nothing. I try to find something (someone) else among it, finding only cold air against my lips as I wander the infinite space. On days like today, I will find my ankles being kissed by something frigid and loud, a prominent presence as it laps at my dirtied coat. I could have wandered into it a great deal longer, if it not were for the overwhelming anxiety of getting lost in it (I am already lost), so I keep to where only my ankles are submerged and dare go no further.

I am eerily still, mangled appendages held at my shoulders, limp and just as depressing as the hastily dressed wounds over my eyes. Momma tried over and over to peel away the leaves she used to keep the blood from running too thickly, pooling too much, but each time she made a strangled noise and left me. She doesn't like looking at them. At me. I can tell it hurts her to look at me, a pitiful mess that she (unwillingly) created, and sometimes I can hear her mumbling ("I'll starve it,") to herself when she thinks I'm not there. I've learned to move with hushed steps, ghosting my hooves over the earth as I step cautiously, hesitant on moving forward. I never know what waits for me.