they dredged icarus up from the sea today; wings bedraggled, tangled in the nets of those who tried to raise his body before. but he would not ascend; he learned his lesson.
I wonder what it will take for the world to ruin her.
It is not a matter of “if.” It is a matter of when. It is a matter of shattering the sky-blue optimism of “believing in the best.” No, she might not argue with me; but I see the belief in her eyes, the desire that is fire-bright to say, you are wrong. She does not believe me, and that is what marks her as a fool. If only I were lying; if only I were fulfilling our sacred promise, exposing my worst attributes in a too-harsh light.
But I am not. I have stared at my reflection in too may mirrors, in too many panes of languid water; I have traced my own scars with my eyes, and repeated my worst sins a thousand times in perfect detail.
As a boy, confiding in Bondike, I had sworn away ever becoming my father. I had said, with confidence and conviction, I will be patient, unlike him. Even when anger is the easier choice, I will opt first for kindness. I will never drink as he does, and I will choose empathy over hatred.
I had sworn I would never lead as he led; that I would return each night to a warm hearth, and exhibit love instead of hate.
Now, I know, I am everything I ever hated about my father.
When I look at her, her softness, the fury with which she guards her daughter: I wonder, how long will it take, Elena, for you to begin to hate yourself?
It always comes with sins, I think, and lies. The foundation for self deprecation has already been laid: so how long, Elena, before that resolved belief in better wanes, as all things do?
You do not claim to be good because no one would have believed you.
I laugh aloud; the gesture is truly full of amusement, of wry humour. I had been the best of them; the favoured son. That is what truly damns me; that is what truly ensures I am unredeemable. They had loved me, my people. They had showered me with adoration and awards, with medals and stars, and said, you are so brave, to betray one you love so.
I cannot help the edge of cruelty I take on. I think it an act of mercy, when I say (like the killing of a thing half dead), “But you do not love this ‘father’ as you did the other.” My mouth is a weapon. My mouth is salt, seawater, bitterness. “No,” I say, with eyes dark as a storm. “No, you loved the other so much you carved away a piece of yourself to give him. You can lie to me, Elena. That is the deal we made--you can hate me, even, if that is what you need. But I cannot help but wonder, what kind of woman does it make you, to lay with a man in love and conceive his child and go to another to raise her? What do you tell her father, not-of-blood but of commitment? Do you say you love him?”
Yes, this is my father speaking.
Yes, this is a heritage of hate.
She kisses my cheek even after the words rush out, but inside I convince myself, none of it was a mistake, none of it, not a damn thing. In the twisting of her story, the regurgitation of her own words, I find an answer to my own regrets: love as a word has never meant anything, and never will.
In that moment, I hate her for her summer-sky eyes, the way she sheds her bitterness and discomfort as if it has no permeance. I turn away from her, with none of the softness, and feel something dark and desperate begin to roil within me. I know it wrong (and perhaps that is why I dance with this devil of mine so leisurely) but the contempt is what drives me to Adonai; it is what forces me across the marble floors of the Ieshan estate, in search of some relief for the pressure, a cathartic purging of the man I am.
I breathe out and steel myself. I pretend I am a different man: for just a moment, I am not Vercingtorix Stark.
I am just a man looking for in a garden of statues for another, for an answer to my aching.
It is not a matter of “if.” It is a matter of when. It is a matter of shattering the sky-blue optimism of “believing in the best.” No, she might not argue with me; but I see the belief in her eyes, the desire that is fire-bright to say, you are wrong. She does not believe me, and that is what marks her as a fool. If only I were lying; if only I were fulfilling our sacred promise, exposing my worst attributes in a too-harsh light.
But I am not. I have stared at my reflection in too may mirrors, in too many panes of languid water; I have traced my own scars with my eyes, and repeated my worst sins a thousand times in perfect detail.
As a boy, confiding in Bondike, I had sworn away ever becoming my father. I had said, with confidence and conviction, I will be patient, unlike him. Even when anger is the easier choice, I will opt first for kindness. I will never drink as he does, and I will choose empathy over hatred.
I had sworn I would never lead as he led; that I would return each night to a warm hearth, and exhibit love instead of hate.
Now, I know, I am everything I ever hated about my father.
When I look at her, her softness, the fury with which she guards her daughter: I wonder, how long will it take, Elena, for you to begin to hate yourself?
It always comes with sins, I think, and lies. The foundation for self deprecation has already been laid: so how long, Elena, before that resolved belief in better wanes, as all things do?
You do not claim to be good because no one would have believed you.
I laugh aloud; the gesture is truly full of amusement, of wry humour. I had been the best of them; the favoured son. That is what truly damns me; that is what truly ensures I am unredeemable. They had loved me, my people. They had showered me with adoration and awards, with medals and stars, and said, you are so brave, to betray one you love so.
I cannot help the edge of cruelty I take on. I think it an act of mercy, when I say (like the killing of a thing half dead), “But you do not love this ‘father’ as you did the other.” My mouth is a weapon. My mouth is salt, seawater, bitterness. “No,” I say, with eyes dark as a storm. “No, you loved the other so much you carved away a piece of yourself to give him. You can lie to me, Elena. That is the deal we made--you can hate me, even, if that is what you need. But I cannot help but wonder, what kind of woman does it make you, to lay with a man in love and conceive his child and go to another to raise her? What do you tell her father, not-of-blood but of commitment? Do you say you love him?”
Yes, this is my father speaking.
Yes, this is a heritage of hate.
She kisses my cheek even after the words rush out, but inside I convince myself, none of it was a mistake, none of it, not a damn thing. In the twisting of her story, the regurgitation of her own words, I find an answer to my own regrets: love as a word has never meant anything, and never will.
In that moment, I hate her for her summer-sky eyes, the way she sheds her bitterness and discomfort as if it has no permeance. I turn away from her, with none of the softness, and feel something dark and desperate begin to roil within me. I know it wrong (and perhaps that is why I dance with this devil of mine so leisurely) but the contempt is what drives me to Adonai; it is what forces me across the marble floors of the Ieshan estate, in search of some relief for the pressure, a cathartic purging of the man I am.
I breathe out and steel myself. I pretend I am a different man: for just a moment, I am not Vercingtorix Stark.
I am just a man looking for in a garden of statues for another, for an answer to my aching.
