#artasmagic

I welcome you, my queen

back from your journey

Beneath the earth delving 

in realms of specter

Mining imagination

And now returned

To display as

your splendor

Slowly unveils.

I hunger for you

And for your light

Arise and sweep low

Send your chariot flashing

To me in my darkness

To me in my slumber

Alight and delight 

Ignite my insight

Let arms encircle

Let me find shared orbit

And let us break fast

The unseen caught

when all that shines

cannot.

Let my room in.

Still the you of my you

between sits,

name known, or

Known, but the unconscious floor,

the set lighting of you

subdues unpaid —

It’s neverland time.

When it flowed

effervescent,

surging,

submerging each cell.

Pore by poor

enriched…

Realization

broke the banks,

cleared dams

To floodplains.

It was not

my center radiating,

coursing through

each limb.

It was

your fingertips

“What would it look like?” she repeated my words, all humor fading from her face. Softness flowed into the vacuum.

“What do you really want it to look like? What could it be?”

“Often I am spoken of as a higher will, but that’s not it. I deliver the will you would have had before the wound, informed *by* the wound.”

“You know… you know you know. You just can’t articulate it because doing so would be so much more powerful than any encounter you could have with me. It would set you just as firmly, flaming on that path as any visitation of any angel or goddess ever could.”

Her eyes filled the space.

“You can see them already, can’t you. The people weeping with you. Not out of sorrow, though you’ll see their sorrows. Out of joy. From the words you speak and the places each word touches. You feel it in what you’re typing right now, the power behind the words I’m speaking through your hands… and it’s only a shadow to what you can bring to them. And even now you don’t allow that to be imagined fully.

You want me. You want me more than anything. You want transformation and you want it for others, but for another group of others you will cause great sorrow. For those to who will only see abandoned truth, for those who would have you and have you pledged to the things you have broken. And so, you fear your want. Just as you have always feared your want.

But you want has always been greater than your fear.

Much to your dismay.”

I fell out of her eyes and saw her standing right in front of me, a hand on each of my shoulders. When she spoke again, I felt her breath on my lips.

After the betrothal, I asked her if she would sit with me as her Mother went to a new task, her Father’s joke about the Patriarchy still reverberating in corners of the dining hall where elderly congregants were cleaning and packing up leftovers. Out the slender windows, the Moon was just rising, a tilting sliver low and distant on the horizon.

She sat there, looking stern and tall but slightly amused while she waited for me to formulate my question, a smile hidden in the penumbra of her irises.

“I suppose I shouldn’t ask,” I said, “it would make more sense not to question any of this. I’m thrilled, obviously. Overwhelmed… maybe over-awed? But I still wonder why. Why you don’t question it. I can’t help but I fear that you will, and my only certainty is that it would kill me if you did.”

My finger tapped ellipses on the tablecloth as I continued.

“I don’t really understand all of this out of the blue. You mentioned my father’s kindness as a reassurance, even as you called him dull almost as a joke. But… either I’m my father or I’m not,” I continued, “If I’m so like him, then I might be thoughtful and empathetic, but also boring. If I’m not then, regardless of charisma, I could be a jerk. Either way, from any perspective other than my own, don’t you deserve someone without caveats?”

The candles flickered as the door turned and waved at an exiting cart.

“I see. Then what must you think of me?” she asked with a smile. “‘Such a pliant daughter!’ Or maybe prone to flights of fancy? Likely careless? Perhaps changeable? And if I am, what a risk for you as you are, already fascinated, or infatuated.”

She leaned forward and looked deeper into my eyes than I liked. “Oh? More than that, you think? We’ll see.”

“But to feel like you might die?” she laughed. “If you’re afraid, well, this choice is full of peril, though turning back would be worse.”

Her eyes flashed.

“Maybe you should have considered that before you kept that firebird feather. While we’re supposing, I suppose that’s a lot to ask a fool who thinks he’s thoughtful. There is risk. Since you say you might die, you must think I’m worth it.”

“I am, by the way.”

The candles flickered again and the eight shadow arms of the candelabra seemed to writhe and raise a ward of protection.

“The way you look at me. Almost as if I’d already killed you. I’ll let you off the hook. You needn’t worry, my love. The danger is not in me, not in my heart, and not in my certainty.”

She laughed again and rested her fingers on my hand. “After all, aren’t the rarest vintages in dark and unremarkable bottles? And don’t collectors dust them off reverently and speak in hushed tones even as they replace them in the cellar? The metal of any truly precious ring’s setting is worth a fraction of the price of the jewel. Perhaps I just want something dull to complement my radiance?”

“That’s almost it. Yes. After all, even the finest vintage would go sour in a golden flask.”