Her body freezes upwards from her toes, a new ice age to kill out all the hope. She feels like she won't ever feel again. She promises herself she must never feel again.

She can't cry - it's so icy all over, cold and slippery and tough, icy all over. She can't cry and she can't see.

The sky is pink, the air is warm and the clouds seem to dive back from the sinking sun. A flock of birds like rolling waves in a perspective so consuming - scattering across the air, sweeping the evening behind them in sheets.

She needs to be silent, she needs to let you leave her, letting your soul evaporate before she can move. So she stays still and silent.

Life has been a game, a race of who could get there first, a terrifying test of who could escape with the least pain. The only thing to do now is find the one person left who can validate her. And then she won't need a life. She won't need a future.

On ocenas breath, I seek to sail

Frost of winter turns hope pale

And I will trip and bleed and fail

But there will never be another love for me

There will never be another love for me

Oh mother dear, you must not cry

For on the wings of tears I'll fly

This is my bittersweet goodbye

For there will never be another love for me

There will never be another love for me

As birds that soar through mist of day

Flocks tumbling o'er the salty spray

They soar and plunge in waters grey

And there will never be another love for me

There will never be another love for me

Wind whistles through ropes, and the bells tangle with gulping breath. All words caught there. And her heart caught there too.
You can sit on the quay, and stare out at the water. You can sit on the quay and forget you are nobody's daughter.

Cleo thinks:
I am alone
I am free

She thinks:
"Through the clouds I'll never float
until I have a little boat
Shaped like the crescent moon."

She read that someplace, sometime.
The past is just a pile of blank paper.
Her memories are a load of made-up stories.

And

And couldn't you have tried a bit harder?
Couldn't you have forced out bravery
and understanding like paste from a
tube - a snake of your courage.

And couldn't you have loved me
a bit more? Wasn't there a spell
or a mantra, to chant me into
your affection? Imagine I'm a
kitten or a duckling - does that help?

And why did you paint me
such a rotten portrait? Couldn't
you have given me away forever
to save this ripe hatred? The
hatred blossoming and burning
through my baby heart.
You stunted me - couldn't you have set me free?

I breathe but it tastes like coal
And I see but it's overexposed
And I taste but it's all aspirin
powder and cigarettes.

Couldn't you have left me
alone? Because I
touch but the only one that
feels is you.

You numbed me
And all I could do was watch
And all I could do was join in
And we both let me disintegrate.

Cleo's mother died last night. She took control too much. And Cleo doesn't even know who she's angry with anymore.

She thinks;
I am jealous you escaped
I am terrfied
I am alone
I am free
She thinks, I crave to have my mother back, my mother who was never really there at all.

There are a million ways to destroy yourself, you can burn or drown or cut or hang, you can implode, ingest, give up, throw up, jump from, bury, rip, or you can simply disappear.
If you vulture-yourself, how long before you're eaten up?

There's a new man now, he must love her, he must fancy her, he must want to screw her. He spoke and looked and gave her a present. Sweat beaded on his temples.
And Cleo was so wrong and sick and broken, but he didn't seem to care.

Cleo wants a boat to sail away, or wings to fly across the sky, or a fast car to drive into the ground. She is going, going, gone.

Bird Guhl by Anthony and the Johnsons

I am bird girl,

I am bird girl,

I'm bird girl now.

I've got my heart here in my hands

I've got my heart, here in my hands now.

And I've been searching for my wings,

I've been searching for my wings some time.

I'm gonna be born

gonna be born into soon the sky

I'm gonna be born into soon the sky.

'Cause I'm a bird girl

and the bird girls go to heaven,

I'm a bird girl

and the bird girls can fly,

bird girls can fly,

bird girls can fly.

Cleo can feel it bubbling, this terrifying furnace underneath her skin, popping and frothing, it simmers and threatens.
She knows she'll be leaving in a blaze of glory, an explosion, a climax of fire and drums and screams. She thinks, I am outside of this world, I am outside of you all, one day I will be flying free.

Cleo chews the inside of her lip, and thrusts out her chest and worries her teeth with her tongue. Cleo doesn't know when to speak, or what to say, she forgets what you're meant to do.

She thinks about her father and desires him too much, and dreams about his hands, and wants to touch his face. She thinks about her boy and his suffocating kindness, she thinks about her mother and how she seems so diluted and so weak.

They say she's ill, her mother, they told her that she's not well at all.
Cleo hears but doesn't really listen, and she knows its bad but doesn't feel the pain.
If everyone you love dies, or leaves, or disappears, who do you become? Cleo validates herself through other people, other human beings proving her existance. When there's no one left then she can only fade away, or burn up like a phoenix.

She always chooses fire.