Deimos
THE RESURRECTED SWORD
How did you survive? they ask
How long did you suffer?
how dark did they tint your dreams?The Reaper, the Sword, could spend eternity painting his failures on canvas, but he was convinced she had no use for tapestries stroked and stoked in blood, in catacombs, in sepulchers, the demonstrative mistakes becoming unholy nightmares, reality sinking farther and faster than girls who wanted to fly or boys who thought to catch things they couldn’t have. His father laughed and then it dissipated, she sunk, and then time sought to riddle them with promises and aspirations, to keen their ambitions, to instigate, to provoke, again and again – and to what ends? To what means? They were not broken – because he refused to bend entirely, because he refused to snap in the direction of their fractures and fissures – but some days it was close. The warrior had things, beings, to guard now; no moments to hang his head in sorrow, shame, and humiliation; the world didn’t rest for the weary or wicked, held no sympathy for those who couldn’t endure. Find another way, it would shrug, apathetic at miniscule layers and lacquer left in dust.
After all, he could tell her a thousand times he didn’t deserve her, and she still wouldn’t relent – kisses on callouses, a tremble in the line of his motions, not parting, not swaying, breathing over the mass of gilded tassels, ghostly plumes devilish and tender, thinking to tilt his cranium a fraction and billow air along her neck. But then she answered and he had to divulge into thinking, pressing his lips on the back of her nape; like swimming but with air, lungs filling instead of biding their time, no limits except the sky: freedom, liberation, deliverance. Those were things he’d once had – only when he was young and foolish and incapable of understanding what it meant – gone in the clink of armor and chainmail, in the slash of a sword, along and upon a cold throne, encased in rime and ice. More nuances he couldn’t have again; but nicer indulgences and dreams. Her arms were a depiction: clouds and light, reaching for horizons and being truly able to touch, to ignite, along their unending surface.
Then she spun before him, dancer steps in his stoic, solid immobility, an arch to his brow in the midst of her smile, and he wondered if she was planning something – a whimsical bout to their stories and myths. “But I am not,” and he refused to let his grin diminish; the lines yearning to topple down into a frown, teased, tormented, and taunted again with moments of splendor and decadence he couldn’t have. I am Abandoned went unsaid; some truer words never spoken. He moved his arm, let it extend her into a twirl, another spin, without passerbys and strangers to bombard, mutilate, and ram into. “One day I will show you anyway.” Because the rivers, streams, and brooks had to lead somewhere, and there might’ve been an endless, eternal blue beyond those means – powerful and insistent, sublime and potent, yielding to nothing and no one.
After all, he could tell her a thousand times he didn’t deserve her, and she still wouldn’t relent – kisses on callouses, a tremble in the line of his motions, not parting, not swaying, breathing over the mass of gilded tassels, ghostly plumes devilish and tender, thinking to tilt his cranium a fraction and billow air along her neck. But then she answered and he had to divulge into thinking, pressing his lips on the back of her nape; like swimming but with air, lungs filling instead of biding their time, no limits except the sky: freedom, liberation, deliverance. Those were things he’d once had – only when he was young and foolish and incapable of understanding what it meant – gone in the clink of armor and chainmail, in the slash of a sword, along and upon a cold throne, encased in rime and ice. More nuances he couldn’t have again; but nicer indulgences and dreams. Her arms were a depiction: clouds and light, reaching for horizons and being truly able to touch, to ignite, along their unending surface.
Then she spun before him, dancer steps in his stoic, solid immobility, an arch to his brow in the midst of her smile, and he wondered if she was planning something – a whimsical bout to their stories and myths. “But I am not,” and he refused to let his grin diminish; the lines yearning to topple down into a frown, teased, tormented, and taunted again with moments of splendor and decadence he couldn’t have. I am Abandoned went unsaid; some truer words never spoken. He moved his arm, let it extend her into a twirl, another spin, without passerbys and strangers to bombard, mutilate, and ram into. “One day I will show you anyway.” Because the rivers, streams, and brooks had to lead somewhere, and there might’ve been an endless, eternal blue beyond those means – powerful and insistent, sublime and potent, yielding to nothing and no one.
- until you had blood glistening on your teeth
- until your suffering paled in comparison to their own
- until you learned to enjoy the sounds of screams
