You stand in front of the mirror, muscles tired, and watch your own skin.
You flex and stretch and watch your body move, like some force of biological magic.
Then, you see it — tendrils. Creeping roots. Pale blue and branching. Your veins under your untanned skin. This is what they mean by “translucent.”
You cup your breast up, away from your ribs and twist slightly, stretching your side-body to observe the thicker vein descending from your hip into your pelvis. To memorise it’s limbs, branching, reaching up toward your ribs. To see the tendrils weaving over your ribs, latticing about the Cage. Lacing across your chest, under your collar bone, from your shoulders, like wadded spiders’ webs.
You imagine my fingertips running over them. Tender touch. Gentle breath. Whispered kiss.
You feel no shame in your pale state. You are beautiful in your biology. Your blood flooding to tired muscles.
Should you break the skin it would flood out.
I want to remember it.
About the Author: Æverett 
Æverett lives in the northern hemisphere and enjoys Rammstein and Star Trek. He writes both poetry and fiction and dabbles in gardening and soap making. She has two wonderfully old cats, and a dearly beloved dog. He also plays in linguistics, studying German, Norwegian, Russian, Arabic, a bit of Elvish, and developing Cardassian. Language is fascinating, enlightening, and inspirational. She’s happily married to her work with which she shares delusions of demon hunters, detectives, starships, androids, and a home on the outskirts of a small northern town. He’s enjoyed writing since childhood and the process can be downright therapeutic when it’s not making him pull his hair out. It’s really about the work and words and seeing without preconceptions.