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I ask, what is a monster if not a warning against the dark?
A scepter of crimson bleeds through the dandelion sky. Twilight spreads its wings. The moon, crowned in a diadem of stars, lifts her head and surveys her dark kingdom.
I realized then that like the moon, I only knew one of my father’s faces. The soul is such a fickle thing. Easy to bruise. Easy to wound. No wonder why we protect ourselves with this careful camouflage. All of these meticulously cultivated aspects of ourselves we drag with us through the years. Our costumes are heavy, of course our spines are bent.
I learned something that day. There are different forms of grace. I was not graceful like a dancer. I was graceful like a mountain lion, newly formed and full of teeth.
“I want you to know something, and I want you to carry this with you into forever. Only you get to decide who you want to be. You do not hold your father’s sin.”
There are good people in this world, silent and stalwart, practicing quiet acts of bravery each and every day.
And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Love wasn’t always soft. Sometimes it devoured. Sometimes it felt like teeth. And oh, he loved right now. He loved so hard it hurt.
“I still love you,” I repeated. I twisted about in his arms so I could meet his eyes. I rested my hand against his cheek and wiped away a tear with my thumb. “Whatever you have done, whatever sins you carry within you, I forgive them. I forgive you and I love you.”
I found peace there, with dirt under my nails and birdsong filling the air.
Her life is a battle, darling, and no battle is ever beautiful.”
It is strange, is it not, how the very things we crave end up destroying us in the end. It’s as though we desire the shine of the knife, but only feel satisfied once we see our own blood.
Love is a battlefield strewn with the corpses of hopes and dreams and still we fight, for what else is there for us to do?
