i used to pray like god was listening
i used to make my parents proud
i used to make my parents proud
Revelry.
It is one of your few joys. It is your only hobby.
It's so easy to drink, and drink, and drink, until you an see nothing but the blur of your own feathers fallen over your face. It's so easy to laugh when there's nothing else to do. You like the way you sink, warm and intoxicated, into yourself; it isn't scary, and it isn't dark, and what is still dark has the comfort of the womb, or a deep kiss, or something equally intimate. The world seems much smaller. You seem much smaller. It's better that way.
The pounding headache is for a future you, a more resentful you, a version of yourself that you see in the mirror when your vision is cleared. It's for the you, sat out in the square, with the white winter light in your eyes and one wing lifted to shield them.
You're watching her, like a spider: still, almost impossibly still. There's no particular motive behind it--she just happens to be there, and you happen to be bored, as usual, so she draws your eye--but you're watching her awfully closely for a man with no cards left to play.
You bend your head, propping it up on one knee. You don't like the way the feathers on your jaw dig into your leg but it's better than nothing. At some point anything is better than nothing, even this. For the 50th time today you think of your work, the smooth curve of a shortsword, the bright gleam of a halberd -- all precious, all infuriating, all exhausting in a way that goes down to your bones, into your marrow and sits like you sit, like a beast in waiting.
Overencumbered does not quite to her justice. You're watching her pluck fabric from the street, tie it into her hair or around her neck. You are amused but it doesn't quite show, just perches at the tip of your tongue, until the girl flicks a coin toward the musician and it breaks over your face in waves.
"I think that's stealing," you say, smiling almost conspiratorially. It is one of the few expressions that make you look whole, and full. You're still squinting. The wing is still shading your face.
You wait.
It is one of your few joys. It is your only hobby.
It's so easy to drink, and drink, and drink, until you an see nothing but the blur of your own feathers fallen over your face. It's so easy to laugh when there's nothing else to do. You like the way you sink, warm and intoxicated, into yourself; it isn't scary, and it isn't dark, and what is still dark has the comfort of the womb, or a deep kiss, or something equally intimate. The world seems much smaller. You seem much smaller. It's better that way.
The pounding headache is for a future you, a more resentful you, a version of yourself that you see in the mirror when your vision is cleared. It's for the you, sat out in the square, with the white winter light in your eyes and one wing lifted to shield them.
You're watching her, like a spider: still, almost impossibly still. There's no particular motive behind it--she just happens to be there, and you happen to be bored, as usual, so she draws your eye--but you're watching her awfully closely for a man with no cards left to play.
You bend your head, propping it up on one knee. You don't like the way the feathers on your jaw dig into your leg but it's better than nothing. At some point anything is better than nothing, even this. For the 50th time today you think of your work, the smooth curve of a shortsword, the bright gleam of a halberd -- all precious, all infuriating, all exhausting in a way that goes down to your bones, into your marrow and sits like you sit, like a beast in waiting.
Overencumbered does not quite to her justice. You're watching her pluck fabric from the street, tie it into her hair or around her neck. You are amused but it doesn't quite show, just perches at the tip of your tongue, until the girl flicks a coin toward the musician and it breaks over your face in waves.
"I think that's stealing," you say, smiling almost conspiratorially. It is one of the few expressions that make you look whole, and full. You're still squinting. The wing is still shading your face.
You wait.
Hugo Arkwright
⚒
⚒
@
