|
I don't deserve an angel, Momma. Yet here she is, smiles and warmth, like the dark side of the sun. And I love her, Momma. I love her because she sees me, hiding behind the glimmering brilliance of my family, and she wants me instead. Me, a shadow, a silent skeleton with too big eyes and a burdened heart. And I don't know why she wants me or why she even cares but I starve for it. I soak up every word and smile and touch she so graciously bestows upon me and it's so much all at once and yet not enough just the same. But she's like a wave, working at me slowly with each tide that comes in, until I succumb to her. And I can't be more grateful because submerged in her presence I'm calm. I can breathe. And for just a while, I forget. I forget Fae and her beauty, and the strangers with the whispers and stares, and I even forget you Momma. And...I feel free.
When I can cry no more, in the silence that follows I hear her voice. And she tells me her name, breathes it into my ear like a secret, one I vow to keep forever. Ranjiri. And I stare at her because she's crazy, right? Why would she think...? And my mind rebels, but my heart aches, because I want to believe. But then she says Momma loves me...and Momma, I know that's not true. I know you look at me, at Fae, and you wish you'd never had us. That you never got to have fun, that you were too young, and that's why Fae has to go away. Am I going to be sent away too, Momma?
If I have to be sent away...then I want to live here, forever, under the midnight silk of Ranjiri's feathers, safe from the world and drowning in the peace she spreads over me like a blanket. Safe. Loved. I want to stay forever cradled in her grasp, until everything bleeds black and gold and I never have to cry again.
She calls me beautiful, Momma. And my breath comes sharp and my eyes water a little and I flick my eyes between two rubies and try to see if she's lying. But she's not. And my lips part and my words are broken and humble, so sincere they hurt as they come out; "Thank you." And I turn my head and stare at the sand where she lays, watching the abrupt turn from pale cream to midnight and whisper a confession I've never spoken to anyone but the mistress of the night in the hours when I should be sleeping. "It all I want...be pretty. Maybe...maybe Momma love me, like she love Fae, if I pretty." Oh, Fae. Beautiful Fae, with her dusk schema and her beautiful eyes, her lilting laugh and her perfect features. And Momma hates the father that sired Fae, and yet she sees in her beauty I can't compare to. Fae is strong, and beautiful, and those are the only two things I can hope to achieve. The only things I know, they consume me, a fire, for if I cannot reach them then I don't deserve Momma's love.
And I feel stupid because she pauses and I tuck my face into her shoulder and hide. I don't want to embarrass myself in front of the angel, Momma, but I fear I already have. "Ryuu," is the soft whisper that comes out when she hesitates, a gift, a hope that this extension of names means I can keep her. That this feeling of peace, of being loved, can stay with me forever. Momma, how can I explain that I'm a freak? I have so few words I can use, and I stumble as I try to put them together, feeling foolish in front of this eloquent angel swathed in the fabrics of perfection. "Momma...had Fae and I, but Fae has one daddy, I has another. At same time. Momma very young. Momma white, I...black. Eyes weird they say. Horns weird they say. Just one. Not three. Lots of reasons..." I know I'm weird to have three horns, Momma. I know there are so many things that make our family victims of whispers and rumors...and I am too small to fight them. There's nothing else I want, to banish them, to make them hurt like they hurt my family. But I am weak. And so I must be strong, just like I must be beautiful.
Momma, her eyes are like rubies. No black at all. And I stare and a small tremulous smile begins on my lips. "You my sister, Jiri? Look...like me. I be beautiful, like you? Later?" And if I were older Momma, I would hear the desperate hope in my own words and feel shame, because my heart is in the hands of this beautiful angel, and she has the power to either break me or make me stronger. I am too young to know the dangers of this act.
Momma, maybe...maybe other people can love me too. Maybe I've been looking for love in the wrong places.
|
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
⇒
[P] i remember saying prayers for someone kind
