Vulnerability, webbed and cracked, sketched a pathway down the lacquer of her relentless spirit. Hard, then soft, lilting and listless for poignant, evocative shards, eyes closed and heartlines drifting into resonant bells, carols, warbles and trills, floating, assuaging tones. Dulcet bird song, enlightening, conspiring, soothing, angelic, seraphic whispers and guardian benedictions, cascading, warm rivulets of arias and ballads. Varnishing, imploring, exploring, the depths of salvation and deliverance, painting black canvases with sea foam and glass, mermaid melodies, exotic crystals and deliberate portraits, essences of elements dipped in ambrosial sonnets, honeyed lyrics, stone and armor glistening, harboring, harpooning the dreaded armaments of past fragments. Held together by aspirations, hopes, tied in satin and lace, taffeta and silk, smooth, gentle, subdued and lulled into the waltzing paradigms of primrose graces and blessings, washed over and over in the lustrous shades of light. Sweet, scintillating, cosmic rhapsodies, piercing the veils and midnight oeuvre, left blinded by the bliss, dawn and twilight mingling in wild, candid dances, vivid, trying to find the sun. Each note composed sanctuary in the harpsichord trance, in the plaited anthems and strains, a map of Elysium and fleeting, beating sanctum, carillons and minarets, towers of rich reverberations and hallowed hymns. Could she stay here, beloved and treasured, cherished and adored, in the wake of paragons and virtues, saints and divinity, gleaming and radiant, the same as before? Could she awaken again, cast aside the brutalities of yesteryear, the melancholy stains, the searing blemishes, become anew in the glimmer, the glamor, of sublime, holy, beatific tapestries? Or was she too ruined, too clouded, to return into the luminescent chords, the bright, brilliant brushstrokes, and the proud, determined resolutions of a celestial soul? Too torn, too maimed, too condemned, incapable of finding the pieces she’d tossed amongst the waves, the edge, the cliffs and the glades, revelations scorned into the villainous torrent of her spilled over animosity? Too malicious, another pawn sorted into the game of machinations and macabre ambitions, broken off for the next malicious dispute, the portended pursuit? Was she too heavy now, sinking and drowning in the depths of ravenous plumes, plunging hellbound into burning pools, vicious incantations?

But she was pulled away, from the shimmer, from the dismay, from the glamor, fading and slipping back into the present, eyelashes brushing over cheeks, awakening to the barbarity of her livelihood, vocals silenced amongst the vile imperfections, iniquitous immolations and hot knives, the lacerations of wounded fortitude and enamel. Her tender eyes captured the entity of the elder stag, the words he whispered over her orchestrated refuge; how dearly she wished she could return to the walls of resilience and morality, not continue embarking down the turbulence of her own mockery and creation. The stranger’s appearance was mended, no longer blistered, broken, distorted and altered from the searing, scorching efforts of skirmishes, upheaval and chaos, and she hoped his heart was the same, stitched and patched together, repaired and renewed. There were too many splintered spirits fighting for the chance, the ambition, the glory and hallelujah of a tender, wondrous life, too many extinguished and vanquished from the precious dreams and faiths, promises and possibilities. How many times had he roamed in the somber, hollowed walls, in the weary tribulations of sentience, aligned and reignited for another course of seething bedlam? And if he could do it again and again, was she also capable? How strong was he? How strong was she? If he bore the world, couldn’t she do the same?

She thought to leave him in peace, wander down the beaten trails of sand, dunes and gulls, of disappearing into the echoing chambers, drifting back into the aimless, nomadic quandaries of her existence, of shifting and unwinding in the incorporeal haze of all the damage she’d caused. But then he reached out into the void, across the parallel structure of sonnets and song, caressing at the droplets slithering down her cheek (and how had those appeared – tears from the ocean, crying for her when she refused?). For a moment, Lena turned her nape and face into the breeze, allowed the coiling rapture of the salty brine to coat her essence in the cataclysm of its coiling fates and mirages, embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated in the haunting gaze, in the simmering innocence of his query. Why do you weep? For foolishness, for cowardice, for all the chains she ghosted over her actions, for all the skeletal remains of her pride, of her prowess, of her virtues and divinity, rectitude and goodness shattered in the rime of her calamity? For the selfish tombs she’d laid scattered at her feet, for the blood stained upon her sword, for the crushed shield she’d thrust in front of her, for the companion who had left breathless incantations upon a shadowy floor? The songbird yearned for her secrets to be locked, kept away and enclosed, frozen in their oubliette, unsung water tucked behind her eyes. And if she told this stranger, this foreign body, this weary traveler, would he smite her too, damn her to the condemned sanctions of the underworld, paying the ferryman for her final reverie? Some part of her desired the opposite – that between all the steel, stone, tenderness and warmth, there would be some mercy left for her to obtain. The nymph’s stare returned to his lavender gaze, poignant and clear, and she uttered the same question she had once asked an icy sovereign. But he’d never replied, lost to the torrents of gales and goals, abandoned, faltering achievements and waning wiles. Would this hour provide her with some sense of deliverance, either by maelstrom or rapture? Her lips roamed over labyrinths and arcane derisions, unveiling only the barest image of her soul, a whisper into the eaves and ocean. “Have you ever hated what you were becoming?”


@[Kirottu]