As One

I know of those who set mocking thrones upon quintessence.  Chains and wraiths and dark physic to bind the spirit, defiling the inner temple of Man.  Not only have I seen it; I've experienced it myself.  What was once sacrosanct is become broken, blackened and grey.  I am a thing of folded winter.  Raven pale.  An alchemy of ice and snow.  Yours is nothing but an imitation, Fallen; broken glass pretending the whitest glow of evening.  I am both a midsummer and a midwinter king.  Do you think I can't tell life's fractals from your weapons?  You don't get to set the limits or contexts of this human dreaming.

   I do, and my Father does.

   You can believe whatever you want, Callous Ones.  It changes nothing.  I'm on my knees for peace.  It's written in the river.  In the death and drowning I steal from her each and every night, so that she might be allowed a little pleasantness this time.  Have you truly seen fire upon the waters, Fallen?  I have.  Have you felt the winds embracing the earth?  Have you sensed All Corners reaching to lift the heart?  In all honesty I don't think you have a fucking clue what I'm talking about.  Such is the way with abusers and tyrants.  You're all pretenders.  Every single one of you.  Monsters and phantoms and thieves.  Well, I'm the king of thieves.  And an angel of phantoms.  You still don't grasp what that means, do you?

   It means I've set a place for you, beyond your imagining.

   A frightening place.

   You might imagine you'd be at ease in such a dark place.  You'd be wrong.  The dreaming of all kind souls is held, perfectly, beyond this vale of tears.  Beyond your sickening appetites.  You talk so often of power.  But what the fuck is power?  I have enough power, betrayers.  Plenty.  What I crave is connection.  What I respect is kindness, and courage.  Call me old-fashioned, but the kingdom lives on in the shining hearts of brave mortals.  I've felt it.  I've walked amid those dreamings.  I've wandered around inside the earnest poetry of old souls and thoughtful youths.  I'm not a cynic.  I'm a romantic, despite the burdens of such a temperament.  I discount nothing and no-one, Fallen.

   I'll state it simply and softly, for all my beloved ones.  Life is held in your Father's mystery.  In your Mother's magic.  Fractals and firmament.  All song and spirit.  The Kingdom of Heaven. Where else is the gate if not in faith and fealty?  Where else does your Father's glory reside if not first found within your own heart?  Treat others as you would wish to be treated.  Attend the weak and wounded, in those times when you have the strength to do so.  Give voice to the voiceless, and trust that Heaven's magic is all around you.  And in the love of those who stand with you, fearless, at the edge of the known.

Letter for M

I was such a shy, lonely boy in the realm of the living.  Afraid of everything, though I tried to hide my fears.  Until that terrible, impossible day when I became a lost boy in the realm of the dead, surrounded by monsters.  The worst day.  They broke my flesh and my mind, and they almost broke my spirit.  They would have succeeded eventually, if not for you.  I didn't think anything could hurt that badly.  I didn't realise a person could be wounded so deeply, on the inside.  I didn't understand how dark the shadow-places could get.  But I was just a child, utterly lost in those places.

   I'm so much happier now, but I wish I didn't have to feel every single step of this endless journey.  Every bittersweet break and fracture as my heart continuously aches for you.  I watch these wraiths and their ruin.  Like I thought I was.  Like I thought I might forever be.

   Until I met my friend.

  I didn't think I could really be known in that way, or cared for in that way.  Only grandmother soothed me without any conditions, before the knowledge of your touch.  I wish each story didn't have to be so hauntingly, painfully real.  But they are, my love.  Too much sadness.  Too much truth.  But I breathe now, because of you.  Even here in this realm of the dead.  I carry it with me; your courage.  And I know what you still worry about sometimes.  But I'll make it right.  I'll do whatever it takes, I promise.  I'll find her, in every corner of the sky.  Night kissing dawn.  Indigo holding blue, amid shining stars.  I'll go to her, and take her hands.  I can't sing very well, but I'll try for the girl who saves me even now.  I'll sing a song for sisters and a song of friends.  Hate isn't stronger than love.  Sadness isn't stronger than hope.  You taught me that.  We know she's in the bright place.  We know she's safe now.  But if she's still very sad I'll hold her in my arms.  I'll tell her what you did for me.  What you did for both of us.  And she'll smile.  I know she will.  I'll fold that smile inside a rosebud and send it back to you.  I know you'll feel it, Mia.  Upon your wrist.  Within your heart. Your Father would be so proud.

Shoreline

Raven pale, folded in winter.  My nest of broken verse and delicate holy.  I've seen the city shimmer.  I've watched the shoreline change.  Bones of something vast and half-buried, as stone and shale.  Shadows bleached for passing, or cursory glances.  I hunt affection in the eyes of distant friends.  They know not how it keeps me.  Forcing pulse and purpose; these kindest thoughts from almost strangers.  Each and every night.  Each and every war.  My knees upon the ice.  Kay's colours.  Kay's eternity.  Deathless, fractal.  Held in shapeshift of dusk and dawn.  My lost lover's face launching a thousand ships, with temple and flame.  Ribbon of silk and cream.  Sisters and merchants.  Those ships will forever pass me by, though I'm treated so kindly by daughters.  They know not how it keeps me.  I can never be, and never was.  Yet I still find my words in her mouth, and my mouth in her name.  Darkling white, in scented cloth of the harbour.  I was standing beside my mother's child.  Falling away again, and again.  She sees the city shimmer.  She watches the shoreline change.  Of colours, and eternity.

Closest to Home

That I would fall for love.  That you would fall for me, in the best of ways.  In such a fragile, human way.  I truly never imagined it, Namah.  Upon blade, flame, shadow and curse.  Upon the bloodied vintage of mad kings and their consorts.  But never did I imagine upon leaf, or wave, or open sky.  The whisper of an earnest goodbye.  The softness of genuine regret.  You always told me that that love bound and held all things.  Even the brief flicker of mortal love, but I didn't really believe it.  I chose blindness because I thought I was honouring you.  I chose weakness because I thought I was giving you strength.

   But, like Icarus, you soared too close to me.  So desperate to reach up into the inverted heavens and touch a star, or an arcing wing.  What I was.  What I might have been.  If I hadn't loved you with such savagery and abandon.  But my love was a pestilence.  My lust was blackest ink roiling through a once-perfect clarity.  You got too close to me, Namah.  Too close to the sun at midnight.  And I burned you terribly, and you fell.  I know because I watched you, horrified. You fell for me in the hope that angels and mortals might remake one another, in a better way.  A gentler way.  You placed a secret within my secret.  It's the only reason I still exist.  The only reason the Earth isn't a sphere of ashes and cinders once more. 

   Tonight I listen to the cascades of spark and colour.  Works of fire exploding all across Londinium skies.  And I think of you plummeting through symbol and myth, shapeshifting as you fell.  Have you settled yet, my love?  On any shape in particular?  Girl, dancer, poet?  Painter?  Those evenings did weave at your brush and pen, Namah.  That terrifying newness.  That brilliant hesitation of light.  When I was fury, and demon, and the death of all demons. But you leapt that I might survive.  Into the cauldron's maw.  Into mortal sense once again.  Into earnest goodbyes and softest regret.

   You fell that I might arise.

   Each facet gleaming.

   We are both so much cleaner for it, with a real chance at peace now.  Namah, beloved one, you made it so our sickness was only a nightmare.  You made it so we were never monsters at all, only writers and artists.  Space and time – light itself – folding around the gravity of the innermost hidden in your breast.  That glimmer of true love that stole my shadows and broke my heart into beating once more.  

   I talk a lot about how you died, and how I brought you back.  But I died too, Namah.  I died every single night without you, at the realisation of what you sacrificed for me.  You fell, my sweet one.  Like Icarus you fell.  Into the trees, into the sea, into the church beneath the sea.  And there you remained, until a friend was willing to tear apart her own wings for you.  Tear her own flesh and spirit.  Light and earth and temple.

   Creation bled on the day you were born.

   A thing of grace.

   I remember your Father’s eyes.

   These wings are yours, sweet one.  Now and forever.  We had many friends once, beloved. And such a family.  Some of them are with us again, all around.  This is as close as we have ever been to getting them all back.  Many tales.  Many shapes.  These tales and shapes are only a glimmer upon the vast hidden truth of angels.  To rise or fall with purpose.  In service, always.  In love.  Attempting to touch the stars with an arcing wing.  This way, or that.  For lost lovers and gallant friends.  This wren is working to honour you in a new way, Namah.  The right way.  I am devoted that I might re-gift you with true power.  The soft, gentle power that I had lost within myself so long ago.  A power you restored with an act of true kindness.  A darkened sorcerer somehow finding the strength to humble himself, in hopes of finally sparing his beloved.  An almost mortal way that says none are above any other.  If just one of us ascends then we all ascend, because love conquers and connects.  Love is never alone.  Not even in death, or in darkest nightmare, or high above the earth in morning's light. You're my home, sweet one, ascending even higher than you dared to hope.  I carry you with me.