The Myth of Wings

I can still feel you there, are we tangled in time somewhere. Armistice

I woke up early in the dark.

The last traces of yet another hurricane bringing the sky down in big fat drops or warm, wet rain. The morning quiet punctuated with far off rumbles of thunder.

Everything is closed. I was home alone and the dog refused to come out from under the blankets. I wish I could be her and have that choice. Just stay in bed until this metamorphosis is complete. It must feel like chaos to the caterpillar. All of this change, locked in a cage you made yourself, turning to liquid, hoping the casing holds lest you spill out before you are done becoming.

I keep thinking I am breaking through, any minute now emerging with wet wings, still fragile and vulnerable but closer than being goo.

I found my wings yesterday. Real ones, made of metal and rusted from being left outside.

I am trying not to read too much into it, but have we met?

I pulled into a parking lot to turn around, on an errand I didn’t have to run, and there they were.

I realized after I had picked them up and put them securely in my backseat that I was behind the hotel he stayed at, the place we had our first kiss.

It’s not a metaphor, I did really find a bit of metal that looks like wings. General consensus is that it was a fireplace hearth. Removed from god knows where and just left in the parking spot I had to turn around in.

Now the only question is, do I clean them up or leave them as is. Rusted and a little beat up but heavy and beautiful.

 

And for a minute, before I peeled myself out of my dirty, thrashed in sheets, I could feel him in there with me.

He is supposed to be here. And in some version of reality, he is.

We didn’t get a chance to sleep together and touch each other in the night. The one night he stayed, it was too hot for autumn. The temperature in my room soaring into the 90’s. So we left space between.

I woke up in the night and put my hand on his chest and it came away burning.

But I kept doing it anyways. Making sure he existed in the night. He reminded me in the morning, of how real he was and I let him in. Pulled him closer until we were as close as two people can be.

That was real.

I know it.

I have text messages and a random dirty sock to remind me that yes, that happened and yes he was here in this house, with me.

But I have moved houses. Called all my power back from the old walls and windows and doorways. Left those keys on the kitchen counter and I know they are gutting the place. I am gutted. Flesh falling off my bones because I keep forgetting to eat, to breathe, how to tie my shoes.

How will he find his way to a house he’s never been too?

If you are sad you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are content you are living in the present.

I do not like this present. This is not the reality I choose.

The future is uncertain and full of the holes of what we were supposed to do.

The past is full of clues, and repeating patterns, lessons on loving prophets and him.

8. When you find him in his room, thrashing the sheets, pressing his palms into the wall, howling. His face a river. Close the door. This is how he makes wine. Leave him in his sorcery. 

Lessons on Loving a Prophet-Jeanann Verlee

The door is as closed as I can get it but my fingers are welded to the jamb, they won’t let go. Iron grip or whatever those wings are made of, something heavy and unyielding.

She goes on to say be ready with tourniquet and prayer. I have been praying, kneeling, hoping.

All that is left is one fragile red, silk strand, holding.

The last line of that poem is YOU WERE MADE FOR THIS.

I am.

Karma markers and amalgams. Pieces of what came before, the good parts, the kind you put in a scrapbook and keep, all presented themselves in him.

Old songs that struck my soul like a chord, all making sense now. Things I have read and quoted and seen. All lining up like stars taking me home. I drifted so long. I am impatient for shore and solid ground.

The wings will be the last thing to come into this house.

Seems like the right thing to do.

Metamorphosis complete.