Melted Feathers
The boy always had his eyes facing the skies; birds soaring overhead always slipping though thin fingers. Away, away, away, they fly lonely, still the boy lingers. A world not yet ready for his mind, keen and ambitious, he creeps slowly to his father’s study—steady he caresses that freedom, fictitious. Echo, echo, echo the words, harsh, loud against stained glass ears. “Dare ye heed not my wards against the fears I seared for years?!” “Away, away, away,” The boy whispers, wax and feathers adorn his back. wings not meant for child prisoners, light seeps in from beyond the cracks. Far he flies soaring into skies unknown, freedom, fleeting, floating high above the world that had shown him nothing but contempt and rights eroding. In the sky alone with the birds he watched for years as nothing more than a ghost. But he remembered his mother taught that angels are ghosts with different hosts. He’d show the world what he was worth, light it aflame in strength he’d earned from growing with the family curse. He'd teach the world love learned from burns. Sweat dripped down his arms, snaking smoke against his back. Yet not once was the boy alarmed, as once white wings turned to black. All along the boy watched still the skies those birds ever near, but still so far away, away, away past his charred hand they flew while he melted away and met the stars. Mixed Drink Nostalgia has a funny taste. Sometimes sweet and bitter and hot and cold. Memories that burn with the light of a childhood I left with haste. It comes with a tint of rose and melting-ice memories that cannot be replaced. The fizz with feeding ducks beside the river. They have songs and laughter that crumble with mold. I drink them, slowly. What a funny taste! Hide and seek—we played as cats who monsters chased in the dark we cheer from behind closed cupbords, “Behold! Behold! The childhood we’ll leave with haste!” I choke on chunks, those memories laced with pulpy pain and strength of protecting the fruit that our trees wouldn’t protect. That, too, is in nostalgia’s taste. At the bottom of the cup is a girl, the doodle on the wall I once erased. Over and over, “Don’t grow up too fast,” I hear her told, but we whisper back, “I had to leave with haste.” Though just a kid, her heart, defaced, was smudged with splattered memories. I scoop her up, look her face to face, and tell her, “Together we’ll drink Nostalgia’s funny taste, to return the childhood I left with haste.” October 3rd That summer was the loneliest I’d ever been. For the first time since I was small, I no longer had friends, no longer had a place to go. A kid no more. It was my first summer without the threat of school. It was home, then work, then home again. Even still, I remember feeling homesick. Home was flooding with cursed feelings and unspoken shards of glass that we walked on Pressure—nonstop pressure. When the pressure blew up, I couldn’t flee. My body was blasted with the explosion af accusations disguised like medicine for my invisible broken bones. I could have had it worse. My parents weren’t proud of me, but they always provided a roof, food, transportation, tolerated my insubordination-- the burden of proof for my suffocation. Hospital turkey tastes like cardboard. They sit you down in a room with cameras-- as if I needed to be watched— like I wasn’t constantly being watched Confession; I told a faceless lab-coat how unforgivable my crimes were. Like a priest, he recorded every terrible thing I’d ever done. How I was breathing, speaking, luxuries that I abused until they were a constant burden to those I loved. He sealed my deal by taking my blood in exchange for bitter pills. Yet... I knew I was committing yet another sin. Because when I got home, my mother screamed— but it wasn’t for the pain of almost losing Me. It was because of the hospital bill that comes with saving a teenage girl’s life. Omens of a House Fire I knew the house would burn down. I knew that it would burn down and that there was nothing to be done about it. The fire was inevitable. Yet my voice couldn’t reach from beyond my fragile body and the figments of family frivolously followed their foreseen routines. They study, they sleep, they stand in the kitchen drinking dead coffee. It wasn’t that I didn’t try. Shouts battered against a voice box that would make no noise. The house glowed with a flame that I couldn’t contain; a scream I couldn’t make. My hands were coated in charcoal and sobs broke from lungs made of smoke. I burst from the front door to a cold night where eyes upon eyes watched everything from my childhood crumble behind me. We watched as the black wood of my home toppled like matches into black ashes. Alone, undamaged, were the objects of my labor. Black and white pages that I’d scrawled my heart onto. My little arms couldn’t carry the weight of my lofty dreams. Tear stained, I stumbled into the night, burned from the fire with my art—my dreams-- clumsily fluttering from my arms into the sky with the embers of childhood memories. Wisdom “You’ll understand when you’re Older" That was the name of a shield offered to a young traveler. The shield shone, having been crafted from the mouth of the gruff old wise woman. Only-- the shield didn’t work. It didn’t save the traveler when the fires of love burned their heart. The clean shield could not prevent the lasting scar of a lesson learned in the heat of battle against Time’s army. It does not protect the traveler From the piercing puncture of a jaded sword, as knowledge taught the traveler to dodge before running in blind. Beside him is a young girl, ambitious and kind to a fault. She admires the shiny shield, and turns to him with sparkling eyes, “Your scars are so cool, and you know so much! I wish I could understand how to do what you do!” He gives her an unmarred shield, places a calloused, cracked hand on her clean shoulder. In a gravelly voice, and a tepid smile, he says, “You’ll understand when you’re Older.” On Your Behalf Lay down your sword. I will fight on your behalf. My body is already marred-- you cannot break what is already broken, so, please, let me trade any tears in your silky shirt with the skin on my back. Look here, at my hands. Do you see the cracks and stains? Blackened in every crease, sullied in every way. They are proof of my capability to withstand any flames. I’ll stand by your side, until time no longer ticks. It would be enough for me. For you not to bleed, since any dagger would first have to go through me, your majesty. Your tears leak salt into my bleeding limbs, And you hold me close, apologizing. Cry not, your majesty, for I assure, though I tremble my resolve is steady, “This is but a wound of the flesh, I can take it. Why must you cry? That hurts more than any slice!” Crimson stains your white fingers, though I can’t stand for much longer, I want for nothing more than to have taken this pain from you as well. Though I protected you with all my might, I see still wounds that bleed crystals from your eyes. Against my wishes, you wrench the sword free from my hands. It looks so large against your delicate frame. Royalty wielding strength you shouldn’t need. “Stop fighting my wars,” you choke out. “A soldier is worthless when sacrificed. Look here, at my hands, the ones you protected for so long-- I wish you’d stop being strong for both of us. I’d give anything to fight by your side, so that you might be more than an army of one. I beg! Lay down your sword! This war was never meant to be fought alone.” The Swan A swan in a family of ducks watching as a mother migrates away leaving two freely frozen eggs. The swan wades to the nest, barely old enough to swim, and stays with children that were not her own—laid late in a lonely winter. Before the flowers of spring arrived, came the clumsy quacking of a brother and sister duck. Since she, herself, knew not yet how to fly, The swan tried to teach the chicks to survive. Downy feathers of three birds in a borrowed nest fluffed up and grew slick with time. The ducks followed the swan’s every move, even when the swan became frustrated when instructed honks came out as quacks. The swan grew beautiful, cloaked in admiration white. The ducks grew to see between their yellow fluff and her shimmering down. The flock of three grew old and strong; The younger siblings, and the adopted swan sister-mom. Migration Song A scream began, but when? I do not know. The origins I lost so long ago. I cry, I shout-- the sound of fallen snow A squawk, unheard—my voice—I lost control. I’d once refined the strength I held inside. Despite it all—I faced toward the sky. You told me then, alone I could confide In flightless birds I knew would never fly. So no, I know not when the screams begin. The day I noticed blood was on my wing My flight was stolen by the infection. My pain, ignored. My silenced suffering. You beg, you cry—but it is all too late. You’ve lost the dove to wounds that you create.