Agnus Dei

The same hands that string an opaline bow with unrivaled skill and let loose a hundred gleaming arrows with ease, piercing the hearts of arrogant and wicked and setting them aflame with the heat of passionate righteousness.

The same hands that weave bandages like tapestries upon the flesh of the wounded, warding off pestilence and decay.

Wonderful Places by:

no more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone

want me to love you in moderation, do i look moderate to you?

this will be my last confession, ‘i love you’ never felt like any blessing, whisper it like it’s a secret only to condemn the one who hears it

because i am done with my graceless heart, so tonight i’m gonna cut it out and then restart

tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks and the kindest of kisses breaks the hardest of hearts

but the loneliness never left me, i always took it with me, but i can put it down in the pleasure of your company

at seventeen i started to starve myself, i thought that love was a kind of emptiness, but at least i understood then the hunger i felt, and i didn’t have to call it loneliness 

the fabric of your flesh, pure as a wedding dress

it’s an even sum, it’s a melody, it’s a battle cry, it’s a symphony 

but i know it’ll have to drown me, before i can breathe easy

to the crowd i was crying out, and in your place there were a thousand other faces

and it’s over and i’m going under, but i’m not giving up i’m just giving in

in a moment of joy and fury i threw myself from the balcony like my grandmother, so many years before me

and it’s peaceful in the deep, cathedral where you cannot breathe

i know i seem shaky, these hands aren’t fit for holding

i’m not beat up by this yet, you can’t tell me to regret, been in the dark since the day we met, fire help me to forget

it seems that i have been held in this dreaming state, a tourist in the waking world, never quite awake

shower your affection, let it rain on me, pull down this mountain, drag your cities to the sea

and i did cartwheels in your honor, dancing on tiptoes, my own secret ceremonials

a year like this passes so strangely, somewhere between sorrow and bliss

in the spring, i shed my skin and it blows away with the changing winds

i swallow the sound and it swallows me whole until there’s nothing left inside my soul

and i want you so badly, but you could be anyone 

❝I will remember, nor could I forget, far-shooting Apollo,

whom gods tremble before as in Zeus’s abode he is striding—❞

— Homeric Hymn to Apollo (translated by R. Merrill)

[ my little altar for Him |

There’s honeycomb shoved past your lips and rosemary braided by deft fingers into your hair. There’s whispers in your mind of stories to be told, heroics to extoll. There’s sunlight that touches your skin, like fingerprints seared into skin. There’s the sound of music constantly in your head like a finely tuned radio. There’s jewelry on sale that looks like sun rays and a murmur of “Wear it. My gift to you, little one.” as you bring it to the innocent cashier. There’s words of love and tenderness blinking on the screen even though you never typed them. There’s the scent of citrus and burning bay on your sheets despite falling asleep under the streetlights coming through your window alone. There’s the memories of the past, of a life filled with marble walls and the heat of the Mediterranean, of medical secrets and shoving gold under the straw of your mattress and swallowing honeycomb - wax and all - as the High Priestess passes by wondering where the honey offerings have gone because He doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth and He simply put the golden thing in your hand. Dancing until your ankles hurt and you wrists bruise because He pulled you into the temple’s garden to dance for Him alone. Feeling His touch searing you, claiming you, as you cry in fear of others and joy of Him. And He strikes a deal with Haides just to know which body your soul will end up in next.

Aries: Warriors of a traitor clan. Hidden laboratories filled with kodoku jars. Throwing knives and daggers coated in unholy toxins. Peasants turned assassins by the arrogance of self proclaimed god-kings.

Taurus: The knights of a forgotten order. Overgrown armor that shows few signs of decay despite centuries of wear. Sentinels to a forgotten holy site. Violets blooming from the spaces in the maille. The heads of lances twinkling in the sunlight beneath a century of overgrowth, still sharp.

Gemini: Guards shepherding foreign merchants across the dune seas. Faces obscured by cloth veils, a bundle of throwing spears slung across their backs. Stoic and seldom spoken, few have heard their voices. Curiously all female. 

Cancer: Holy knights. Armor and arms created in the image of artifacts found in the deepest levels of the ancestral necropolis. Bronze sickle-swords emblazoned with the symbols of new gods, but their shape alone channels an ancient blessing fit for rending the unquiet dead.

Leo: The followers of a legendary champion. Lightly armored, and what armor they wear is largely ceremonial. Decorative manacles dangle from their wrists, impaled on their spiked pauldron is the effigy of an inhuman eye. Reminders as to the cost of freedom.

Virgo: The warrior elite of an empire now lost and fractured. Helmets in the shape of a snarling lion. Rumors of a secret, esoteric order. Clandestine rituals in the halls of the former capital. Ruminations on the origins of humanity. The true meaning of beasthood.

Libra: The last solider of an old atrocity. Dark memories. Prison camps. A chance at life. Dark red half-cloaks denoting a slave. Sealed into mouthless suits of armor and bound with padlocks. A necklace of keys and the fingers they were pried from. 

Scorpio: Tales of cats eyes glinting in the dark. Circles of mushrooms in the woods. Living veridium armor, shape-shifting along with their wearers. Deals made, debts collected. The watchdogs of the Summer Queen. 

Ophiuchus: Stewards to the dead. Bodies preserved in ritual armor. Forms bent double, walking on all fours. Sacred candles cover their backs like the spines of a porcupine. Blessed silver estocs glinting in the candlelight, free of blood and rust despite centuries of wear.

Sagittarius: Tundra knights. Thick layered pelts act as protection from weaponry and the bitter arctic winds. Wolf-skull pauldrons engraved with protective charms denoting rank. One hand carries a curved greatsword carved from a single colossal tusk. 

Capricorn: A lost warrior from an isolated and inhospitable land. The only known user of a weapon unique to her people. A long, razor sharp angled blade that bears no hilt, brandished with graceful wheeling motions. Strangely, the weapon is meant to be thrown. Stranger still, on a miss, the weapon comes back.

Aquarius: The captain of the guard and first of the dragonfly snipers. Personal bodyguard to the empress, watching visitors from the rafters of the throne room. Tales of a contest with the gods. A crossbow made from a falling star, shot right out of the sky.