from desert flight
he descended upon her nest
on a Taurus moonlit night,
dragging his broken, golden wings behind,
warning he may not stay long
yet engulfing every moment
awake and asleep, with his presence.
he said she was a stepping stone
and so he stepped on her threshold
she said she didn’t really mind
(except she did sort of mind )
but looked for a deeper voice
she caught a glimpse of in a dream…
and she was hungry
his lips were sweet,
a flavor she had known
somehow
It was nectar
to be near him.
something told her to let him stay
and he stayed
though he said he didn’t know why…
and she offered him water
and he drank and drank and drank
and they would laugh, and play, and he flooded her with attention
and as soon as she felt in love
he said he felt nothing
nothing
no thing at all
she dreamed of poison snakes in the gemini moon...
the surface is hard
but surface cracks
the stepping breaks the stones
under the stones is the water
he longed for water
she let him drink
as she longed for water
so drank his tears
listening, patiently
to long dead stories that filled the air
with sound and sorrow
and longing
she touched his scaly wings
his steel clad armor skin
and tried to reach inside
feeling moments of melted metal
she sang to break the barriers
to feel the soft inside spaces
and heal the broken pieces
or at least try to soften the edges.
He drank with desert thirst,
offering hollow words to her hope
that almost, maybe, he might want her
if she just kept offering her tenderness...
he wondered why he stayed,
arguing that it was
convenient
for him
that their arrangement
was simply a business arrangement
and needs should be negotiated
except they never were discussed
and she excused it.
wrote it off,
because who was she
to have needs that mattered?
and his kisses felt guarded
unless she worked to open them
to soften them
as though afraid to push open
the gates he held so closed
and it drew her in,
that he was so willing to receive
...the allure of healing,
(with a sound like being sucked into the void)
seduced her into a twisted hall of mirrors.
and he said he didn’t find her beautiful
while he raved about women all around him
who wanted him, or (he imagined) wanted to taste him,
women who appeared and circled and reappeared
and wrapped themselves around his world,
while he said he longed for a stepford wife
that had all the inner qualities he found in her
and she would never have the outer qualities
he ordered from the menu
and was confused because she wasn’t that
(because he was supposed to be omnipotent)
she wasn’t there for that character
she was there for the water she dreamed of
behind the dam of his devices,
and patience began to grow wings
his stream of unconsciousness
denting her armor
her body aching in pain
from his boots…and she questioned her willingness
to receive the mental blows
while she longed to reach the shores
of the deeper waters
she questioned his intentions
as they walked and mingled, her floating on his arm
the world saw her beauty
and he saw glimpses in their eyes,
she could see him seeing them seeing
what he wouldn’t see
and he defended, deflected, mirrored her weaknesses
got mean on a dime
pushed her buttons on purpose
and attempted to undermine her insights
they slept,
(wrapped up and entwined)
in a sea of self doubt
she dreamed...
of wasps destroying trees
of bees threatening to swarm
of trying to garden in a vast wasteland...
In the cancer moon’s light
she knew that he had to step
on his own stepping stones
to see above the mask
break the armor
that kept him blind
only then
could he see her beauty
hear her insights
touch her with longing fingers
to find the waters
inside of himself
to offer nectar
to their union
she knew
he would need to protect
and give back what he was drinking
or she would fix his wings
with the bloody needle of his own shadow,
the one he couldn't see
the one he tried to make hers,
and she would send him flying
into the lonely desert
of his superficial existence.
before the roar of the Leo moon,
a hurricane smashed the glass
in the hall of mirrors.
where she saw the truth lying in the shards,
pieces of her scattered on the ground
in a heap.
A glimmer of reality echoed in blue,
fogs of awakening...
there would be no great healing,
that was a mirror of her narcissistic hope...
she had simply been Carrion food,
picked apart methodically,
(as a raptor knows the most delectable parts),
Be gone! she said as she released him to the sky,
his great dark wingspan casting shadows over the nest,
silhouetted as they ascended
and disappeared into the morning.