in my mouth
turning
my tongue into
rivers of blood.
T
here is a black line cut into the floor stretched out from one man to another, between Ceylon, backlit by the lantern, and Andras, a dark shape in the orange glow of the doorway. His face is not even visible in the dark of it, only the light cast off the lens of his glasses, two glowing, yellow circles in an otherwise perfectly formless hole.He is still tense. His wings ache on his back with the effort of staying so perfectly still. His jaw is clenched as he waits for something to happen-- an answer, an attack, a departure… he isn’t quite sure. Ceylon, too, is impossibly still, and for a moment they are discolored mirrors of each other, both silent and grim and unmoving as angels perched on a headstone, or the very walls that surround them.
The other moves first, just a tilting forward of the ears, and that is all it takes to make Andras impatient. He huffs, and steps out of the doorway. For the first time, the light falls on his face: black as ocean rock and white as hail, all sharp lines and teeth.
Teeth because now he is grinning, or something like it. A spark rises off his chest and crawls up his cheek. Sluggishly, his anger rises to the surface. Unsustainable. He is already so tired.
"It matters.” He states. There is nothing more to be said on the matter.
Andras has never liked this, the constant greeting, new faces full of anything-- amusement, anger, fear, joy, whatever. Men like Ceylon who ask does it matter are why he stays in the library, shielded by miles and mile of thick-trunked trees and a lightless, pervasive silence.
He is already thinking of his bed, when Ceylon asks him, are you a guard? and because Andras is not facetious, he is not good-humored or good tempered, because it does matter, much more than it should, he answers: "No. I’m the Warden.”
He takes a single step forward, more light on his face, more light on the thin cut of his cheekbones, more light everywhere except for his eyes which are dark and tired and empty. Unsustainable.
He says, again, demanding this time: “Who are you?”
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
