Melita
Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down
to swallow the flame down
Tunnels below surfaces, walls upon walls, never breaking through to the clouds, to the sky, to the bolder riches of the air. Melita couldn’t imagine it – a child of the dust, of the dunes, of the sand, of the stone, wondering what it would be like to crawl her way through worlds like the one they wandered within presently, never knowing, never seeing, beyond the length of boulders or rock. Perhaps, if she’d never known anything else, it would’ve been a conceivable notion – but she’d been immersed in fire and scraped over nettles and thorns, and wouldn’t want to live amidst a wake of unrelenting voids. Not when she couldn’t set it all aflame. Not when she couldn’t bask in the sun. “And what do you think of this place now?” Beyond the thoughts of monsters and threats, to see something other than the wickedness, the terror, the tyranny – because gods, there were so many other wakes, so many other vestiges, so many other things to behold than the ghosts, the wraiths, the phantoms.
It was what she told herself, everytime the cruelty scraped down her skin.
Staying with the Ark, having nothing, chafed at the girl, and she wasn’t sure why. “You find your own family here,” buoyed form her instead, an impulsive reel – the way some clutched at stars, the way some grasped at potential, she had lingered and tried and forgot what it meant to take root until she’d found others striving to do the same.
And then silence while they walked, closer and closer to the exit, to the entrance, to the sparks of light and no monsters, no apparitions claiming them again. Fangorn loosened his grip, and she could feel him sliding down into the crook of her elbow, and the youth breathed, lightened, tried so desperately to cast the cloaks of specters off and away –
Not expecting the alteration in topics and subjects. Her eyes narrowed, and she glanced back over her shoulder, studying, scrutinizing, before deciding how best to navigate the inquiry. “Yes. I do.”
It was what she told herself, everytime the cruelty scraped down her skin.
Staying with the Ark, having nothing, chafed at the girl, and she wasn’t sure why. “You find your own family here,” buoyed form her instead, an impulsive reel – the way some clutched at stars, the way some grasped at potential, she had lingered and tried and forgot what it meant to take root until she’d found others striving to do the same.
And then silence while they walked, closer and closer to the exit, to the entrance, to the sparks of light and no monsters, no apparitions claiming them again. Fangorn loosened his grip, and she could feel him sliding down into the crook of her elbow, and the youth breathed, lightened, tried so desperately to cast the cloaks of specters off and away –
Not expecting the alteration in topics and subjects. Her eyes narrowed, and she glanced back over her shoulder, studying, scrutinizing, before deciding how best to navigate the inquiry. “Yes. I do.”
to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun
to be the sun
