The Skies That Seize Us

 "The title is a play on the Jack Skellington song thing. It follows an unbalanced she-cat as she tracks the seasons, and her broken heart. She travels and fights the world and meets a tom, and everything falls apart."


 * ~ Winterpaw

• • •

I am cold; you left me. I lay here like a fallen angel and the light reflects off my bones. I stare up into gray expanse that stretches endlessly. I breathe, but even that comes cold and damaged, too.

--

It was snowing. Leafbare was snappy and aggressive this year and we fought against each other. She would litter the ground with white reoccurrences and I would throw them into the sky as payback.

You watched me and said: "Stop, that looks foolish," and I called you an elderly bug. You, with your prestigious posture, narrow face, disapproving mindset.

The trees were blanketed in frost and ate up the remaining sunbeams. I would not look where I was going and would crash into them and fall hard and break. You would pick me up but you wouldn't dust me off.

I would growl at Leafbare again and we would run off together past precipitated hills.

I thought we were in love because I was dreaming. Because cats dream; because our minds like to trick us. I never thought we'd be the part of a tragic love story and we aren't. Because you left. Because of frost.

--

I grew up with just my mother, and her story comes later. Twolegplace was hordes of blood and aggression. I had flaming fumes capture my nostrils every morning and I breathed in happily; rebellious hearts.

I fought everyone but was damaged and odd inside. No cat is ever truly content with themselves. It's just illusions, delusions.

My years were short lived because I met you. I ranked the seasons to give me something to do each night, waiting. First was Greenleaf, a time of warmth and love. Leaffall was second best, not innocent, but never deceitful. Newleaf: you irritated me. You, with your obsession with Leafbare, carrying her legacy on into the moons. You with your watery mistakes waiting to happen, waiting for me to make a fool of myself. You with the rain and the aftermath and the waiting game for Greenleaf, where I could be free again.

I recounted each season as a test of my strengths, and some I failed, some I won. I never won against Leafbare. She got the best of me. My temper was an antiestablishment against my mind.

I strolled through a forest sometimes at Sunhigh. The branches hung low as to dust my pelt off with the prickly leaves, something you would never do. The phosphorus plants that fell under rooting logs became my friends, too. Nature and I. Ferns and fawning and falls.

Nature and I and you and I. The only thing in common is that both of you would turn around and hurt me one day.

A kittypet called me insufferable. A rogue called me crazy. A loner ate the metaphorical maggots that would hold me back from violence. I lost control; I lost you.

I travelled and never found a home. Leafbare would stalk me and hold hollow feet at night so that I would wake up with rime attached to me. My paw a statuesque icicle.

It burned so fiercely.

Leafbare is said to be the season of sadness. My mother said that, before she would tell me a gruesomely perfect story at night and then lose all her humility in a damp alley. I learned about birds and frogs and bees too early. I woke up once and saw her rolling in a faded cardboard box and I never truly woke again.

Until you found me and until you left me. Now all I can do is wake. Think about you, which is sad and generic and I don't want to but I do. Sleeping is what saves me and of course I'm shrieking at slumber.

My father was dead before I met him but I know he would've hated my guts. Then again, I never could tell who my father was. Mother went wild; a denizen of claustrophobic mistakes. I followed in her footsteps, I guess. Guesses and dreams are tied tightly, and mine are stone knots.

I met you under a monster. Twolegs call them cars and I didn't know my place in the world so I fought Twolegs. Remember the dogs that shrieked at our paws? We cowered under chromatic tubes for the whole night and then went our separate ways, carrying memories. I told my friends you were ugly (my friends are Greenleaf and Leaffall, on good years) and they repaid you with warm sunny days because they are just as feisty as me. Newleaf is still wobbly.

I have no friends now. Seasons are ghosts of what I once liked. Ghosts follow me and lick my nightmares and I still fight back.

-

You told me that you bragged to your friends, about our "night together." That night was only a mix of snarky responses and sweaty fears. When we met again behind a trash can, I told you to get over yourself and then we did what my mom does. Mistakes upon concrete borders. That was the night to remember.

And then I saw you the third time, as we padded over the pale gray line that twolegs put beside Thunderpaths. Metaphorically and truthfully, we crossed sidewalks and crossed our morals and ran against time.

You smiled at me and I wanted to be tough so I showed off my jagged teeth. When that ended, I went and found a puddle and stared at my teeth for hours and told myself I was ugly and that I needed better fangs. I rubbed them in acidic water and watched the rotting roots and still wasn't pleased. I kept meeting you and knew it would end bad.

One time I wanted to be tough again and I said I was owed to talk to you. I acted tough and rigid and contorted my face in disgust and wanted you so badly. I made it seem like "hard-to-get" but I was really just falling into self-dug holes.

I only talked myself up, and made promises ahead of my reach. Looked strong and said wrong. I ranted to the pines at evening, when day and night collided; the forest my safe haven, but also my downfall.

The fourth time, I pushed you to a wall and whispered seductive lies in your ear. You succumbed to me and we hit it off from there. I would say "literally" but it was much more than that. It always was, and then it ended, and I was stuck in a bad place.

I felt strong then. I strutted around as queen of the world and I slapped ignorant cats on their foreheads, fire against fur. I fought back to my mom to be defiant because that's what young cats do—fight. Although I'm not young anymore. Ageless and yet decomposing. A spark between bones, slowly fading out.

I was not an underdog, or a popular cat, or any of the mixes in between. No labels. There wasn't a time to categorize myself and choose the aspects of my life, though now all I have is too much time. And I use it to mope and be slow, wait and never recover.

I was just being a self-saturated, over/underrated, boy-loving, overzealous girl that would contour her mistakes in her dreams, endlessly, so I could wake up feeling pretty. I sinned and felt better and lied to myself, tried to hide from Leafbare.

But she found me, cracked a cold smile, wrecked everything. I woke up with a dispatched paw from the icy wrath that you put on me.

I set Leaffall and Greenleaf after you and they failed. I let my mom die of her varying diseases from delirious streets and I set out on my own across the world. I fought kittypets and loners who called me names and I always pictured myself differently, against the snow and against anything.

You flocked away with your posse. We stopped meeting, you were done with me. I guess I was too crazy. You clapped your paws and Leafbare hunted me down, time and time again. You ruled my world.

You left me at midnight and I froze to death under demons of snow.