Frail – Daily Prompt, July 18, 2016

[Frail… fail… ail…]

Frail’s a rickety old hospital bed.
Frail’s a freckled-faced boy, more interested in books than ball fields.
Frail’s an awkwardly lanky, shy girl, victim to sneering cheerleaders across the school cafeteria.
Frail are all those poor stranded tree limbs, violently ripped apart in the wake of those vengeful summer storms.

Frail’s hunger, malnourishment, and poverty — of the body, mind, and soul.
Frail’s a frightfully passive acceptance of the status quo.

It’s the stifling feeling of settling.
It’s the way your dreams disappear with each passing year.
It’s your bones crippling under the weight of suspended existence.
It’s losing your mind at the mercy of the woes of the world.
It’s fear in its most dangerous disguise.

Frail is a cumulative lot of demons. They go by many names. Poverty. Heartache. Abuse. Ridicule. Guilt. Shame. Betrayal. Abandonment. Loss. Despair. Depression. Anxiety. Disease. Death. Destruction.

Frail are the sutures woven through the fabric of humanity.

But you know, when you say the word enough, the “ail” element of the word trails off the tongue with hardened strength…

For frail’s also a soft melody, effortlessly transending weary, worn souls into foreign dimensions.

It’s an elderly loved one who’s gracefully endured greater hardship than you could fathom.
It’s sensitive scar-tissue marking the spot where an otherwise deadly knife once saved your life.

It’s the delicate wings of a tiny hummingbird, highlighting the remarkable preservation of a species through some 42 million  years of earth’s trials and tribulations.

It’s the fragile petals, sprouting with perfect symmetry, from one of nature’s most beautiful creations.

It’s the way the afternoon sunlight catches your lover’s finest jewels.
It’s her long golden strands in your strong and weathered hands.
It’s your heart racing involuntarily, smitten by her captivating magic.
It’s winter’s first midnight snowflakes, aimlessly swirling in small eddies, like diamonds, in the glow of the moonlight.

It’s all that darn dandelion fluff — whimsically defined as fairy dust by your child’s sweetly unblemished spirit.
It’s the faint light of hundreds of fireflies twinkling on the hillside at twilight.

It’s the first spark of a match, with but a brief time to collide with an object to ignite, before its flame forever fades.
It’s the gentle dying of the fire’s last few embers, still capable of burning down the whole forest. 

©Brittany Stepniak