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"Sonnet?" Small flecks of snow fell softly onto my cheek, it stung just how slowly they turned to liquid.
The god wasn't here in flesh, tucked warm into a sofa, the cruel captors he Stockholm held dear pressed to his side. He would not come for my quivering feathers.
It was cold, or, maybe I was the cold one. I do seem to have that effect, sucking the energy out of anything that is capable of doing. Perhaps it was my lack of blood, that night. Perhaps it was that there was far too much staining the frost bitten grass.
Thinking back, the only thing in the world that ever seemed to hold any warmth was the boy. The way he'd sing so perfectly to my ugly plucking, it almost drowned out how terrible my calloused fingers were at strumming that sorry instrument. The words, I used to think, belonged to us both, but now it seems I was only listening to a goddess much wiser and much higher than I.
Wiser? Undeniably so. He who could meddle without a second thought so perfectly, just enough. Meddle, perhaps, isn't the correct word. He would fix, mend the shattered glasses thrown at him by the unforgiving universe. The stars did seem to laugh from that low angle. Better? He was bigger. He was grand, gilded in a gold that those who sprung the blessing into life sought to rub bland. Failures they were. To birth a god and bring chaos in his wake is a sin unto itself.
Maybe this is what we deserved. Humanity can only achieve such a level of grandeur, to be measurable to one heaven sent is a hefty ask. Emboldened by the spreading of his own featherless wings, I granted him the grace to perceive the world beyond his flesh. Henceforth he's seized it, yet the shepherd pertains not past the pastor's gates.
What lovely sounds we had plucked in partnership, a pair sweet as the honeysuckle he'd bestow upon mine name. Yet, just as the cool ropes the sun, our days were ephemeral. After all, what is a mortal who stands before a universe if not microscopic. Matter? I do not.
Again, thus, I cry out for my heavenly body. He will not come, I guarantee. The red and blue of my fingertips begin to clam, I will not suffer much longer at this point.
We'd danced and sung. Would I rise? Would he grant me that? Had I done good, had I loved him wholly. Not had it been for the terrible devotion of his birth, mayhaps his thicker fingers would be drawn to mine. He who could be full of life had none a position beside myself, yet I always had dreamt loftily. His verses unmatched, was I devoted enough?
Not had I spoken my qualms. I'd cherished he, o'er art thine curls beside on my silken linenes. Had I spoken my devotions? Ever was the small sound muttered? Sinfully I wept.
Like I'd eased time and time before, his hands seized me. In an instant, I had my atonement. The cold arose, my trickle ran faster, thick hairs wicking my sorrows like the moss of the stream downwind.
Struck, I should have been for my whereabouts known, alas, not I was. For he was ethereal, and a mere mortal was child's play for the fiercely feathered wings he grew to bear. All was well as the years had been, nigh was his flesh of flesh, human in godhood, we could be. In dew followed pairing.
An utter of simple grievance left his lips, a promise of the skink's aid. Oh, how he should loathe mine weary stature. Like mine migratory cousins, I took for distant lands, not a verse uttered towards why nor when, simply a flap of wings and a rift of strain had been ripped.
He should. He does not. Rather, he gather's me, feathers and all, and hoists my dripping body back to the watchful eyes of the strangers in his truer home. They would love me as well, they would tend to the ravines my defiance carved in my seeping soul.
Thinking back, there was far to many bloodied thoughts, but none gashes ever did stain his hands nor sweetly strung sweater. His hands reversed any semblance of crimson I had wished to spill, dew drops arose in mine unholy windows, in plain spite.