Eight of Swords
How tight are the cloths bound along my hands?
Are they even tied at all?
I stand on the shore, salty water pooling beneath my feet. The sand gives way. I feel the coolness of a blade on my heel. I panic. Flail.
Fall.
Weeping maiden, trapped.
Am I?
The air only smells of the sea.
Are my captors lying in wait?
Or have they left me to my misery, knowing I would keep myself?
You, The Modern Angel
You were born of particle and dust, carefully sewn with trails of light, and filled with worlds unseen.
But then, you were pushed into the abyss, swallowed by the viscous black. It filled the spaces where there should be air and enveloped you, suffocating you with flesh and all its unruly demands. Pieces of you, vulnerable, contorted sinew push through your holy threads and leave you hapless. Hopeless.
You've felt this.
Haven't you?
It's in the way you wail for love, for fame. The way you glutton, though all discernable needs are met. Like an insect met with the shock of fate, you pour into the flashing light, for it has promised you so much. You fall, willingly so, into your own siren song of self-preservation. You jump from wheel to wheel, picking asphalt from your wounds. You peer into the depth of glass and plastic, hoping to catch remnants of your birth, that familiar glimmer within the darkness of dimensions. But the spark isn't there. It never is.
You despise this.
Don't you?
There is a piece of yourself, petulant and whining, just as you did when forced onto this Earth. Its cries keep you up at night as you stare yards into the black, merging with the déjà-rêvé. You mask the natural light, afraid of its illumination. And so, your Petulant Self is "disciplined", neglected, ignored, abused. It's forced into the background, unsure of how to reach you, for petulance is its only defense against the voracious black. It will wail until its needs are met. A thread tugs at your heart and you slice it, annoyed. You are too tired for the truth.
You're denying this.
Aren't you?
The smiles formed with brick and string are not the same as the ones that appear in those quiet moments when you recall your composition of dust and light. As you float along cyclicality, you discover how to move with grace through the uncanny valley, how to walk within the plotted chaos of the moon. The nature of your intelligence usurps the desire for control and the ancient truths of the past push you into the future. The guiding light of your Self relived will tell you stories of dust and stars. If you listen, you release.
But you knew this.
Didn't you?
Audacity, Desperation
I see you,
lusting for the cosmic egg
The way your fingers twitch,
eager, expectant
Petulant
Petulant
Petulant
child in shoes that do not fit
Clumsy, clomping,
down a darkened hall
hoping praise awaits you at the lowest step
Instead,
your heel gives way, separates
from the shoes that do not fit
and you fall, a Tower submissive
to its foundation of grit and grass
Your limbs tangle within
your father's clothing
Old, loose, and draping
robes befitting the Saint Afflicted
and you tumble
Weeping, confused
The planted foot sees you,
broken crown, groveling eyes
The planted foot sees you,
departs
Hiss
Through the grasses I slink
careful, callous, confident
Meeting man and beast
with the abyss of my
unhinged jaw, unfazed
by the nails clawing
at my blackness
And yet,
when your tattered sandal
blocked my ancient path,
I halted, astounded by the
opulence of your audacity
The sun itself rested upon
your crown, encouraged
by your devotion and peace,
the faith in your daring step
You pull a flask from behind
your emerald shawl, and I--
--I bare my teeth with
ill-advised arrogance, a
refusal of my fate
The Pattern of Your Wings
Sweet child,
Infant cased in shredded feathers
bestowed with tarnished skin
In this moment, you are healed
--did you know that this was coming?
The fragments of yourself that
caught the biting wind are sealed,
Holy wax cascades across exposed bone,
merges with congealing sinew,
and the ribbons of your flesh bind
forming mandalas of glass and gold
Your colors catch the eager sun
(it has been waiting for you)
and flood the grasses
Their shimmer sets a call
and the rush of wings sources a vision,
leaving windswept feathers
floating
in your stained glass light
Blessing
I pulled the arrow from my chest. A drop of blood, maybe two, fell onto the rock beside my boot. I threw it to the ground and continued my path. My assailant gasped but quickly recovered his wit and with a furrowed brow, pulled an arrow from his quiver and prepared to attack again.
The Days of Offering were here. In order to keep the power bestowed unto me, there were requirements to be met. In my darkest hour, Atrok extended an ancient, guiding hand. But his grand benevolence paled compared to his vast appetite.
Archers were his favorite snack.
The Sister Wound-- or-- Acolyte Failed
I first heard
of the sister wound
in an article on one of those dime-a-dozen new age websites,
the kind that regurgitate what I already know, on some deeper,
innate level but still need validation of
A piece likely written by a woman originally named
Sarah, who now goes by Sage, a person that like me, and maybe you,
is more satisfied by a perceived reclamation
of the present than the weariness of the past but Sarah--sorry, Sage--
(you know how hard it is to unlearn bitter truths)
writes with a heavy pen onto napkins, onto notebooks, onto carefully
manicured webpages her sing-songy tales of the burdened heart
Of a little girl lost in the churning cyclone
of maiden, mother, and crone, reaching, stretching, yearning for
a pristine, gentle hand to pull her from the noise to redirect
the eddies of woe, to show her the direction of the currents
and how to swim against the tides and lastly, to bestow her crown
upon the next goddess of the sea, holy in her power, soothing in her caress,
vast in her divinity
And Sage,
like me and maybe you, knows the legend of the goddess of the sea
and wears her mask, dances her dance, and demands offerings
as if she were the truest vision of Woman but in her own secret,
shameful knowledge, she knows Sage and Sarah are forever linked
So Sarah, drowning Sarah,
fights her way to the surface, bleeding out onto the pages of
twinflameastrology1111aquariusrisingmercedesingatorade.com
writing pro-tips in her blood, hard earned wisdom whipped
into the whirlpools of maiden, mother, and crone,
of a rising goddess seeking direction, support, wisdom, and strength,
but met with the opposite and more--a wilted rose upon a drying stem
But yet, in all her pain, despite the winters growing colder,
even in the naivete of spring and the confusion of summer,
regardless of the fading power of autumn, the bud lifts and opens,
and though the thorns prick, often without apology,
Sage smiles, donning the crown of the goddess of the sea
Sarah-Sage caresses her freshly-struck face with her own pristine, soft hand,
reaching through the future-past to slow the Wheels of Fortune
spinning furiously into the grave, to soothe mothers, sisters,
aunties and friends who chose to spill the acrid blood
of festering wounds onto each other instead of the pages of
twinflameastrology1111aquariusrisingmercutioineightofspades.com
Sarah, the Sage, friend to my hyperfocused machinations
reaches for me through this frigid night, where I sit alone
on a porch in the dark, fuming, exhausted, desperate
trying to contain my acrid blood before it dissolves the remnants
of the stilts holding my home above the sea
but brazenly,
I peer into the tempestuousness of brain and brine
to find a tiny hand barely breaking the tension of the surface
fingertips searching for a graceful, loving touch
Sarah, my sage, figment of my darkened heart, tends to my wound
then coyly, childishly, pushes me back into the violent waters
I catch her voice along the wind, insisting that this time,
I will learn to swim
The Fool
She drew Death and held it up to the light. Her client shuddered. She smirked, but only slightly, to not rouse suspicion. She knew things weren't bad as the nervous man seated at her table seemed to think. She set the card down between them. The question now though, was would she play it up or give it to him straight? Drama paid handsomely.
The reader sat back in her chair and crossed a lean, earth-toned leg over top a bulkier, metallic one.
"So, who do you think is going to die?"
The man's nostrils flared. He looked off into the darkness of the lush vermillion carpeting. She scanned over his jacket, his shoes. They were new. Expensive. But his hair was shaggy, straw-like. Despite his shockingly flawless face, the calluses on his palms caught the delicate lace draped along the table. He had money, but it hadn't been for long. And it was burning one hell of a hole in his pocket. Despite his fortune, he reeked of stress.
Xyra's humanity got the best of her. Her smirk retreated and she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward.
"Look. The Death card usually isn't what people think it is. In some cases, it can be a good thing. It rarely means actual death. It's more like the end of a cycle."
Her client remained silent, staring at the card between them. He furrowed his brow and his mouth fell into a quick but prominent pout, like a child fighting back an objection. He swallowed hard, then released with a heavy sigh.
"Thank you, Miss-"
"Xyra. Just Xyra. You want a clarifier card? Only five more bucks."
"No. I'm okay. Forty dollars, right?"
"Forty-four."
"Is fifty okay? You can keep the rest."
"Alright."
The young man clumsily fished a roll of crisp bills from his pocket and tossed the reluctant cash onto the table. Xyra managed a quick glance and surmised that he was carrying a couple grand. At least.
The shaggy-haired high roller stood to his feet, gave Xyra a soft nod and headed out of the studio into the frigid air of Starsun City. Xyra scooped up Death and placed it with the rest of her deck. She looked over the cash on the table.
He'd given her sixty.
------
The next morning, Xyra woke to a loud banging on her door of her shop. She pushed herself off her cot and limped to the storefront, gears whining beneath her stiff gait. She smelled humans. More than one. One significantly more stressed than the other. She swung the door open to find two men flashing SCPD badges at her. The older, broader man spoke first.
"Are you Xyra Heddingbone?"
"This some kind of shakedown? I've got papers."
"No ma'am, not a shakedown. I'm Detective Meyer. You know this man? Found beaten to death in his hotel room." The detective held up a photograph up with a beefy hand. Xyra's nostrils flared. "Your business card was in his pocket."
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