Paper Armor

The words grew up around her, intertwining with her legs and arms, braiding through her hair. They protected her, creating a paper armor made of twenty-six letters, crisp in their blackness against the white page. She could live inside them if she had to.

Sometimes she did, pulling words over her head like sheets, burrowing into them in a refusal to rise and take on the day. Words had always comforted her; as long as she could remember, she'd held a book in her hands, safe passage ready at the moment the pages fell open, although she hadn't always needed them as much as she did now.

And so she sat still, letting the words sprout from her skin, the tender shoots sending twirling, burrowing tendrils.