Up here, here in the sky

I was full of mirth once and clever and colours spun off the water and the radio and I sung words to myself until they were a white wave.

I grew breasts and cheekbones and men whistled. All sorts of particles flew off me and left. I was welcome. I was so very welcome.

I was a copy and an enlargement and copied. I was paper with plastic reinforcement. I was malleable and stiff.

I was as large as a planet and they unrolled me so I was unwieldy and when wind lifted me I made cracking sounds like a whip and they stretched me and pulled the skin over my bones and fixed me flat and firm against the sky.

I was a portent, a giantess, a mountain.

There was a man too. Clambering and I realised I was naked and

he was clothed.

And there was only one of me but I was everywhere. I was again and again.

He was, I realised, all over me and I was plastered in place, I was pasted and I could not move.

I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

No really, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

So I was lying down and naked and the man was clothed and clambering on scaffolding and I realised we were not strangers but I knew him and knew this. Him moving and me still, so still I could be dead or dying and him slightly smiling.

Him exploring and me explored and his fingers and his knees and his holding.

I cannot remember precisely everything. My head is jammed up hard against a wall and my chin is thrust back and I cannot turn my neck and there is no room to think.

Is it more frozen or more fossil?

Everything around me moves. The road like a river. The rain. The gulls like small bursts of light blistering the air. The tree with its flowers the colour of old blood.

There is only one of me and there are hundreds of me and we are all of us hung in this precise moment, his scaffolding and him clambering towards us and we lying there like a goddess and our heads are slightly turned and we are all smiling slightly.

I never sleep. I am radiant. I shine out. I appear to be lit from within but I am scared of the night and I am scared of the night ending.

I think I have been here forever. I think everyone can see me. I think they all know he has me right there. I think they know he had me and I was frozen or a fossil and he will have me over and over and I will not move and they are all smiling slightly. In the cars they are nodding to each other and slightly smiling.

Did I say before? I think I remember this.

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Thanks to Pip Adam for subject matter prompt.