I AM PRAYING TO SAINTS NOW AS OFTEN AS I AM PRAYING TO GOD: DEAR SEBASTIAN, PATRON OF MEN WHO WAR INSIDE THEMSELVES, PATRON OF HALF-STARVED RUNNERS WHO LEAVE LIPSTICK ECHOES ON MEN'S NECKS, PATRON OF SURVIVING THE FIRST ARROW-STRIKE, TELL ME, WHERE DO I SHELTER NOW THAT MY BLOOD'S BEEN CLEANED FROM THE FLOOR?
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess me up?
you want to screw up the works?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep
I say, I know that you’re there
so don’t be sad
then I put him back
but he’s singing a little in there, I haven’t quite let him die
and we sleep together like that with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to make a man weep
but i don’t weep,
do you?
It is the poem of his childhood; the poem of his journey; the poem of his life.
The pause on the other side of the door is an infinity, inconsequential to everyone but him. Lyr feels his heart tick in his chest, rhythmic and loud enough he is sure she hears it, and he says;
shh, shhh, shh in his own mind, to steady himself, to steel his nerve, but of course it only works because he lies to himself.
Lyr has grown ancient by the time he has turned away and she has opened the door. He hesitates when she says his name, not the half-dead half-name he gives now. Lyr-lyric.
He sighs.
This was a mistake.
He knows in the emotion of her voice, the way it is hopeful as a spring blossom before the last frost of winter.
Don’t you know, he wants to say.
I had to go.
There was a man to follow.
A sea to swim.
A beast to fight.
A lesson to learn.
He turns toward her and she is all that he remembers.
Wine-red and petal-soft; her wings too large for her; beautiful in the way tragedy can be, in a way that makes his heart weep. But he does not weep and there is nothing on his face except the placid look of a still lake, waiting, waiting for the wind to cast a ripple.
He looks her in the eyes.
That is when he knows he knows there is nothing he can say to make it right.
(And he hates the monster in him that wonders if he even wants to).
“Euphrosyne.”
Seeing her in the flesh, and not just in rumour, Lyr nearly asks if she followed his stories of his homeland here; the ones he had shared when he was still young enough to be a romantic. She must have. And Lyr admires her for it; for finding her way to Terrastella; for finding her way back to him. It is enough to make him close his eyes for a hairsbreadth and try and remember the way it felt to nestle his face against the crook of her neck, and whisper of a land he still knew to love. His stories had been so colourful, so poetic, he had escaped with her into them. But he told her those things under a singular, significant assumption.
Lyr had been certain he would die.
He had been certain he would never see her again.
He had been certain he would never come home.
He had been another man.
Did you know between 18 and 25 years of age, the number of newly formed cells balances the dying cells in the body? The moment the body quits developing—approximately 25—we begin to age. We begin to die.
Lyr opens his mouth to speak.
There is a bluebird in his heart.
There is something he wants to say.
Instead, Lyr whispers: “Are you well?”
And within him is a glacial cracking, a self that strains and strains and strains to say more but cannot. And so he stands there, half-luminous in the winter light, feeling the weight of Atlas as he looks at the person who had once been his singular refuge.
I KEEP THE SILVER COIN OF MY TRUE NAME TUCKED UNDER MY TONGUE, HONE MY BONES UNTIL THEY BECOME SHARP AND HOLLOW, LIKE A SPARROW'S BONES. BUT STILL, THERE MUST ALWAYS BE BLOOMING. I CAN FEEL MINE PUSH AGAINST MY STERNUM, BELLOWING TO BE LET OUT. IT WILL SHRED THROUGH THE CARTILAGE OF MY RIBS THE WAY NIGHT SHREDS MOONLIGHT. I WILL RELISH EVERY ACHE.
