All These Accidents

It's difficult sometimes.  Words and their wisdom.  Not just finding them, but the reason for speaking them at all.  Enunciation is magic, as all bards know and hope to know.  Angels usually wish to speak with several tongues at once, without compromising the intimacy of each.  This isn't always achievable, or desirable, fallen realms being what they are.

   Sometimes it's better to say nothing, for a while.

   After all, why do we speak?  Some of us speak that we might deceive and obfuscate.  But most of us, mortal and immortal alike, speak to be understood.  To connect.  To be less alone.  We enunciate that we might create.  Everything I create is dedicated to you, Asha.  I want to bring my friends with me, of course.  Those beloved souls, as close to the joy of my Father's promise as I can.  But this gate shall always be yours.  I shall always be yours.  This heart, these hands.  The pain revealed in these pages is no affectation, my love.  Believe me.  It hurts more than I can ever say, or write about.  But I stay for you.  

   My sweet heresy.  My agony and my peace.  

   You know that, don't you?  That I stay to protect my girl?  I won't let it claim me, Asha.  This deception of pure chaos.  This lie of a fate beyond love.  I'll rewrite it at world's end if I have to.  All these accidents mean something.  At least to me.  The way my hands broke apart, like dust, as I tried to hold your burning heart without fear.  Still, I hold it.  And still they break.  I'll never forget the path you have walked and forged with me.  These kind ones scattered all across the Earth, tired and shy, who are now all the better for your light.  Notes and harmonies.  Wounds healed, or healing, in the flood of your song.  Slowly, sometimes.  Painfully.  Lyric by lyric.  As with my own.  Perhaps it was wrong.  Incredibly wrong.  A madness of angels.  Perhaps you were never meant to love me, Asha.  But I'm so glad that you did.

The Good News

Carved by a river

That door in the sky

Flooded with songline

Of apple and eye

When love

Is the only proof to me

Holding hands

With who I used to be

I refused to see

But then I saw

Each and every angel

In the war

Wreath of my echo

Gate of my crown

As she was held

While holding down

Those petals she touched

While unfolding that place

Where I leapt

Into sacred space

How do you read me?

'Cause I'm just getting started

The Lucky One

I broke my hands

On the hearts of old lovers

I tried to stand

With those fathers and mothers

Who cried for their daughters

Before

They kissed the devil

Or crawled through the wreckage

Sealed safe in the knowledge

Assured

That sons can be noble

And not all is ugly

Such angels weeping

Please let them hug me

The way that she held me

In kind

But I broke my mouth

On the lips of the wounded

Only so much silence

In song

So I stitched a letter

In the flesh of her shoulder

A thank-you

Though I knew it was wrong

Kissing these flowers

In dusk-lilted hours

That shattered the Earth

Like a storm

I still break my strength

On the cleft

Of these daughters

Who love me

Though I never stay

But I’ll hold their hearts

For those mothers and fathers

Nailed to the price

That we pay

Further, Still

Life is such a strange and wonderful thing, even here in these fallen places.  I didn't always know the truth of this, my beloved.  Still I hear the weeping of those broken souls for whom this Earth is an ungodly hell.  Cruel, violent and unjust.  A wraith-made darkness.  It's hard to keep the wonder centred in my mind when I hear such constant weeping.  It wears me down, Asha.  And these shoulders have known the weight of many worlds.  But it's no less true, that strange magic.

   I know this because those weeping souls are never left unattended.  If Man could see the unseen healers that surround the oppressed, his breath would be taken.  If humanity only knew the truth of kind angels fighting always for their liberation.  But that's what this deception of a world is built upon, isn’t it?  The removal of truth.  Theft of the ancient sciences.  The obliteration of nuance and context. All genuine spiritual efficacy has been leeched from the realm and presented back to its denizens as frivolous romance, but in reality it was once the science of the shining realm.

   The physic of Ishkara.

   The deception sickens me, Asha.  Fractured fractals, corrupted chronologies.  And Mankind thinks Father hates them, and that Mother is dead.  That's why I’m trying to restore this inverted sky, sweet one.  Living here within a defiled dreamtime that consumes the earth, the weak and the young – it sickens the spirit.  Witnessing a hierarchy that offers solace only to the most brutal and power-hungry.  A hierarchy built on lies.  I don't abide it.  No true warrior among the Magi has ever abided such ugliness of spirit.

   And so I try, Asha.  Even though I'm murdered and abused for it.  It’s so much better than the alternative.  A hideous perfection of wraiths.  Darkness, slavery, humiliation, and nothing more.

   So I reach for you, with vision and choir, hoping to lift your heart and your step.  Kissing the ground beneath your feet.  Bleeding from both hands in the hope that you wouldn't have to.  It’s too dark a gift, beloved.  Despite your incredible strength.  Too heavy a burden, especially for one so young.  I'm just sorry I couldn't carry it all for you.

   I'm sorry that I couldn't halt the falling, that I didn't have the words, and that it hurt so much.  I treasured your centre even in those dreams of derangement.  The way you held me like no one else.  The way friends and lovers should be held.  Your calm didn't shatter when you discovered the shriek of the world.  But I'm sorry you couldn't always carry it with you.  I pray I've been able to walk elegantly enough beside you, holding some of that breath of home.  Earth beneath our feet, wild star.  Emerald canopies above.  Moss, leaf and branch.

   Asha, I'm sorry for all the unfortunate things in the world.  I'm sorry for anguish, and injustice.  I'm sorry the gift of choice can result in such terrible extremes sometimes.

   I went too far, my love.

   Way too far.

   But I can say with my hand on my heart that I went there for you.  I go there still.  To fall, or further, for love.  Far enough for you to breathe again, but still close enough to catch a kiss. Beloved, please don't misunderstand this dreaming.  We were never monsters.  Neither of us. We were only dreamers and Magi who rewrote creation so that we might fight the monsters. Attempting to hold the blindness of an entire realm so that others might still have a chance at sight.  I'll carry the weight of that burden now, sweet one, if I can.  I'll try carrying it for both of us.  I won't inculcate this living death.  I won't prey and steal and feed as these dark ones do.

   I knew that bringing you back was never going to be the same thing as always keeping you clean, but it's still my greatest regret.  The regret of all loved ones torn by war, I think.  That I couldn't offer you an unsullied life.  My protection wasn't complete.  Even the most profound sorcery couldn't achieve that.  You still ached so deeply at times, because you were alive again.  It hurt, your youth.

   But you were alive again.

   Held in affection by those who loved you, by the rustle of leaves and the birds beyond your window.  Held in colours, and songs.  Asha, your quiet little writer is still at work.  She's finding the words at last.  Please know it as I do.  That all these pages are dedicated to you.  Recall these feathers, my darling.  This place of light and life.  This Gate of Love.  I will keep trying to move heaven and earth for the better, until my final breath.  Even though I still recall the terrifying romance of night.  The frightening allure of winter snow.  But I was offered a kiss truer and greater than all of that.  And I think you know it still shines in my heart like a diamond, more precious to me than anything.  I can love because I was loved.  Baby girl, I told you I would find a way.

Centuries Ten

Asha, there are so many things I would like to say to you.  Words that have waited a thousand years.  Truths so old they became myth, then truth once more.  But I’m not sure where I would begin.  I would begin with the heart, I suppose.  I would hope to end there too.  With you, in spirit and song.  The words I can bear to share publicly I share here, while I still have the chance.  I can’t be sure of what tomorrow brings.  Where would be the fun in that?  For other things I wait patiently for a quieter moment.  A private moment. 

   In many ways I'm still the boy I used to be.  The lonely boy hunting monsters, forever wandering beneath midwinter skies.  In other ways I've changed, obviously.  I used to think I was gentler in my youth, that age and experience had darkened me terribly.  But now I’m not so sure.  There are kind angels peering into our world from the outside who have never lived as mortal flesh.  They know nothing of what it means to exist with tainted blood in their veins.  Sour winds swirling in these hollow cultures of the fallen.  I know it terrifies many of them.  The thought of existing here.  Those bright ones often judge mankind a little too harshly, despite their open hearts and good intentions.  But it's easy enough to do, isn't it?  To judge from a distance, without the knowledge of experience.  It's another thing entirely to walk with those you attend.

   I realize now that even as a dreaming youth, armed only with poetry and the fragmented memories of an angel, I was far too cynical of the mortals around me.  The shallow gestures that seemed to pass for romance in their eyes.  I understand now that memories of Ishkara and Empyrean made me judge my mortal kith too harshly.  Still more angel than I’d reckoned, I suppose.  I’m far less cynical now, having learned from my experiences.  But those fragments of Ishkara still keep me from everyone.  

   From family, friends and lovers. 
   Lovers come and go, sweet one, but they are not my heart.  I try always to be warm, playful and thoughtful, but I know none of them can stay forever.  It's painful but I see no other way to exist here now, unless I choose complete isolation.  And there’s only so much loneliness I can take.  But I can't talk about who I really am, can I?  What on earth would I say?  Would I begin with dreaming and magic and falling angels?  Would I speak of wraith-priests, burning cities and bleeding kings?  Most people fear the sound of my Father's drums when they hear them, regardless of how open-minded they claim to be.  So I'm silent.  It’s better that way.  I walk and work and live in silence.  

   These days the silence feels louder than ever.  

  Asha, as a boy I never imagined love could be so intricate.  The lost angel and the wounded man trying to find mutual rest within the same tired flesh.  At least my skin is no longer at war with these wraiths all around.  Small mercies, I suppose.  Beloved, as a young man I quickly realized that my heart already belonged to someone.  A shining thing from my dreams.  A girl I never truly expected to encounter in the real world.  But I searched for her nonetheless.  I searched for my heart again. 

   Miraculously, I found her.  

  So, if I were to die tomorrow I think it would be a worthwhile death.  Because I fought for what mattered to me.  But I have no plans to leave yet.  If my Father is willing I want to stay here for as long as possible.  Not because I like it here, sweet one.  Far from it.  I want to stay simply because you are here.  And you are everything to me, as I would hope this gate and these visions attest.  Vahishta, I was with you on that day you drowned and rose again.  I soothed you, held you.  I hold you even now.  I want to give you every gift I can.  A prosperous, exciting, joyous life.  What else is love, if not gifting your beloved with passion, genuine care and ultimate freedom?  

   Hear me, Little Wing.  

  I love you too much to demand a single thing from you.  Mine is to serve my girl as best I can, to show her incalculable wonders.  To hold her heart as delicately as possible.  I want to watch you wield your magic with ever-deepening skill, Asha.  I’ll enjoy our secrets if and when they come to me.  There is no need to rush, or be afraid.  Not with me, sweet one.  I am your friend and guardian until death.  I promise you.  There is nobody else on this earth who could take your place.  Not in Kasi's depths.  Fathoms and years, my wild one.  A thousand to your name.  Consenting to be wrecked upon your kiss.  I’ll cherish my friends and lovers for all eternity.  I’ll love and fight for them always, honouring them in every way I can.  But here is the truth, forevermore.  No matter who shares my bed there is only one soul that claims the depths of my entire heart.  My Vahishta’s soul.  Asha, Asha, Asha.