Thursday, December 15, 2005

The Night He Flew Away

“This is love.”
“I’m in love with you.”
“I love you, too.”
“It is our destiny.”
“Of course, I do.”
“I’ve been waiting for you.”

And so on.

“Can’t we picture an ‘us’ together?”

I was sure I’d finally answered that question, and I knew my answers were well given. I answered with music in my voice draping grey lies. And I sang my answers with bittersweet stories of life and living. They sounded good on my tongue, on their ears, and I poured generously, my cup of superfluous love, down their throats, into their chests and let it mix with their fluid- of mind and body, not really caring in which order.

Then I cried. I realized I’d given, and I believed I gave all and got none. My cup grew shapeless with lesser to give, so I extracted from myself to pour more. My rush was in giving, or so I thought.

One day, I sat by my window and looked at the sea hanging loosely from a teasing sky. It held on very tight, like a chick from a hawk’s nest on the summit of the Alps, looking down, realizing a careless step of untrained feet could bring him to meet the world below that eludes him; only, his eyes would close and his desire would be trapped inside within that thumping heart he knew not existed.

Suddenly, a bird flew down to my window. It was no bird I’ve seen before, yet I knew it like my own soul. He was violet and royal blue, and stood as tall as my dreams of attainable love. How tall, you decide.

He spoke with a tongue that caught my own, and I knew, again, I loved.

Now, this was an emotion I decided better to not deal with, because my bird asked me no questions. The vein behind my skin that bejeweled my temple stood hard and green like the henna on a bride, so I hid them in infamy and timidity, with my thick long curls.

My bird carried me away to his world. I spoke not his language, and I regretted I had no feathers like he did. A nest I instantly called my own, without his consent, I adorned with my smell and laid grass and straw to rest by night.

Then came the predicament. My disease relapsed. My cup was full again. I had to pour my love down his throat, and I needed it to mix with his fluids, and I knew the order was already wrong, because his mind, I couldn’t read. Also, I was worried that the content of my love would be lethal to the unusual bird. He was, after all, not human like the rest of them. I must add, now, that then it never occurred to me that I was not a bird either.

At dawn, I awoke and sat by the mighty bird’s side. I knew once the wretched sky goddess roused from her sleep, she would lift her majestic head and tie her long black hair which would unmask the wretched sun, a victim of her beauty who wasted his brilliance in awaiting her rest, just so he could smell her hair.

When the sun cried because his mistress did not grace him, he would reach out to her boundaries with his rays, and his wretched rays would awaken my bird, who, would then, flap his magnanimous violet wings and fly away to live, while I waited for death.

In the evening, my bird returned just before I decided I would carefully take careless steps and fall back into the world that I eluded, and it wouldn’t matter I my eyes didn’t open to it again. There was no desire crushed in my thumping heart that I would save my days for.
When he returned, he smiled. I saw a face in his silk feathers and I went close and caressed it. He looked into my eyes and I saw something. I knew if I looked longer, I would find the human my cup was throbbing for. He looked away for a second so beautiful, that time stopped behind clouds and cried at the moment. I moved close, trying not to cry, and willing to cry if it would show me my human.

Then, I saw an invisible tear drop. It was shaped like the pain in my heart, and the ache in my eyes when I begged them to not cry. It fell on my fingers that he brushed off his face, and its touch felt like the smile my heart gave to stop from weeping. He cried an invisible tear, and I felt it, I touched it. He cried, and with him, I cried too.

He said nothing, but I knew what he meant. I was to leave.

I still know not why, and maybe it doesn’t matter. I said nothing, and aimlessly wandered for a while in the nest I’d come to love. Then I sat on his back, though he pretended he wasn’t waiting, and then he lingered a while and began to fly away.

I speak from at my window, and the sea has sunk in his depth. The sky is sorry she let go, the sun is waiting for her to rest.

“We will meet.”

He asked no questions, so I could never answer, and his back was turned to me before I could ask. My heart is light, very light, and it is hollow from a missing burden. I do not weep to my sky or her lost seas for the bird that is not mine and will never be. I weep for my insane need to pour again, for the last time.

I’ve left my cup of superfluous love in the nest that was never mine.

Though I realize now that I cannot pour if he has no thirst, I hope my bird will taste it, and want more.

I cannot extract from myself any more, but I now know, that it doesn’t really matter.

4 comments:

neoveen said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
neoveen said...

its beautiful..

Anonymous said...

very well thought and very well penned...

Anonymous said...

needs to be edited.