“Obsidian” by Beth Cato

flames engulf the girl’s flesh

gnaw her bones

worry over the marrow

as a dog with a chew toy

yet she lives

standing

in the crosshatched shadows

of a basketball hoop

swirling tendrils of fire

in ringlets

around her fingers

this heat is nothing

the flesh, even less

she shivers from her skin

for the second time that week

blood and charred matter

pool around her ankles

the new skin beneath

slick ebony

obsidian

soft in all the right places

too soft

it’s not the fire

that makes her wish the

obsidian

extended to the huddled core

of her soul

it’s her mother’s eyes

cold

the jeers on the playground

echoing

ugly, whore, freak

she will take the flames any day

it’s the words

the eyes

that shatter stone

Beth Cato is the author of The Clockwork Dagger steampunk fantasy series from Harper Voyager. She’s a Hanford, California, native transplanted to the Arizona desert, where she lives where her husband, son, and requisite cat. Follow her at BethCato.com

and on Twitter at @BethCato

.

Published in Kaleidotrope, Autumn 2015 | www.kaleidotrope.net