Orange Sky, Rotting Wraith
Comment and critique encouraged.
and there you circled me
trailing limbs that circumscribe
your alchemy upon the sand
withering wings
under orange sky
the sky of fire
like those days
How do you fly?
your bones are bleaching
yet you still circle
you try to screech
dust issues forth
you haven’t the strength to cough.
you climbed as high as you could go
so high your wings couldn’t take you anymore
you climbed the rungs
of that black spire’s ladder
sun drenched bars
tore skin from your palms
“But what if I fall?”
you called down to me from above
never knowing
I’d swing you back onto the spire
and fall to my death before I’d let you fall
you muffled your cries
even as the sun burnt your head
you climbed toward the sun
the towers that broke
those suffocating clouds
the clouds that obscured the sky
that could never destroy the sun
we climbed higher further
you began to tire
I felt it within my soul.
and I closed my eyes
to catch the darkness
an imagined reprieve from the ever-glaring sun.
and there you were
at the base of the spire
circling
legs dragging in the sand.
you hadn’t fallen
there was no crater
yet somehow you were down below.
I could climb no further
as my soul was tied to yours.
so I sat
for a thousand years
making symbols in the sand
barely taking time to block out the sun anymore.
I watched
as the bones in your hands bleached
your hair fell from your scalp
the vultures climbed down the tower
but would not touch your form
Delirium had begun to take me
[a millenium writing letters to yourself will do that]
I thought you were the vanguard of carrion eaters.
500 more years had passed
the vultures began to eat things that fell
I smiled as I watched them fight
the first smile in an eternity
for the scavengers had something to fight for
I lost myself in the little games they played
never realizing
my bones were not bleaching
my hair still stayed upon my head
I was sore
my hair matted
my words had begun to stay upon the sand
the sunlight that reflected off my eyes
had turned sand to glass
tiny diamonds
that would cut the skin of any newcomer
but there weren’t any here
I held one up to the light
it was the most perfect thing I had ever seen
I felt blood began to run down my throat
when one does not speak for millenia
and the no water passes between your lips
you may as well not have a mouth.
I pressed the crystal into my skin
it hurt
but it stayed
and I could create rainbows
with a flick of my wrist.
after admiring the sunlight
reflecting off
the most precious thing I’d created.
I began to hear a song.
I still don’t know if I heard anything.
for I’d not heard anything
I was focused on your feet shifting
every grain of sand
at one time
I could hear everything
one day the sound cut out
this was not the silence before a crack of thunder
it was silence.
I heard a song
or perhaps I felt it
I listened to the faint ringing
for so long
it was telling me stand.
I got to my knees
and sand worked its way into my eyes
as I fell.
the song grew louder
and I could hear the flapping of wings.
I saw no tempests
no great clouds of locusts
Only subtly shifting orange sky
and the never changing sun.
I struggled to my feet
unsteady like the hopping scavengers
that I lived vicariously through.
My face toward the sky
I dropped my arms
on the balls of my feet
I stretched toward the sky
bathing in the darkness of my cold eyes
the sun
it felt cool
it was not burning me
even as I brought my face ever closer to the sun
these would have seemed like pointless inches
I was a billion grains of sand
closer to the sun.
it did not burn
as I began to feel the aeons melt off of me
My arms became lithe again
I felt no urge to write
strange symbols in the sand
cryptic poetry that only the wind would read
it felt like nightfall in my mind
I sang into the heavens
hoarse
coughing dust
straining
when forever had come and gone a single not issued from my chest
and the song wrapped around it
playing like leaves
around the trees in some ancient forest
I cannot ever explain the beauty
of grass when all you’ve known is sand
I lifted my feet again
struggled toward that spire again
in the time that passed
even the unchanging spires
that the gods themselves
had used to render this land fallow
had changed
strange markings
looked drawn by slithering of snakes
I gripped a bar and pulled myself aloft
my vision began to fade
I swooned
but didn’t fall
the spires which used to burn
felt good in my palms
I climbed higher
toward that beautiful song.
I kept climbing higher and higher
I have no idea how long I climbed
it was slow
and my muscles
which felt no pain before
felt as if they were going to tear themselves from my bones
I finally felt the need to rest
I hung by my weaker arm
and let the darkness fill my soul again
it was then that I was able to cast
my gaze upon where I had sat
I saw my post and
the strange lines
that I had drawn so many times
that even the shifting of the sands could not erase them.
I followed a path out from that point
A line started in the sand that puzzled me
I followed it for miles
I could have skipped from line to line
but I followed it
this empty spiral
until I reached your feet
pushing the sand like the wake of a vast ship.
but at least the ship moved with purpose
a ship seemed to have a soul
I do not know what carried you.
my eyes refocused
in all that time
you had gotten farther away from me
spiraled slowly away
with new eyes
I barely recognized you anymore
I watched
as bleached bone wings
beat lazily
yet held you aloft
[if you could call it that]
you were moving further away
I doubt it mattered to you anymore
I doubt much mattered to you.
you moved so slow I never noticed
I look upon the festering sores
the bleached bits of skull poking through
the sparse locks of hair that adorn your head
like the first moss after a forest fire.
I watch pieces of skin still fall
as you inscribe your spiral into this desert
and I feel
I feel nothing
not emptiness but nothing
the song becomes so loud I nearly fall from the spire
as my attention focuses upward
it becomes soft and beautiful again
and I hear the vague flapping of wings again
I climbed higher than you had before you fell
finding bits of your skin and fingerprints
along the way
I found a place
carved by some wonderful traveler
in which I could sit.
I found a quill and page
with a note
“tell your story and say your goodbyes”
I grasped a page and words stabbed my mind
cut at my soul
“and cast your regrets from this tower”
said the unspoken words the wise travel had imbued
into those pages.
So here I write these words
symbols that perhaps a weary travel can understand
if they can feel my story.
that beautiful song grows louder.
He stood on the edge
his eyes closed to feel the breeze
he could see a spiral that stretched out into the distance
a wretched wraith its pen
he let the breeze take the page
heartfelt words
and a story of millenia passing
with eyes open
but no experience.
the parchment spiraled around the tower
before the north wind took a fancy to his written words
the page seemed to stay still
and then flew with unmeasurable speed
past the strange lines
past the spiral
and the rotting wraith
past a distant shifting cloud
past an immense mountain range
past the horizon into the only darkness in this land.
He began to sing.
not of the past but to the future
with words he could not yet understand
and cared not.
His words were as the page upon the wind.
as he climbed toward the song.
Add your comment
You need to login or signup to add your comment to this work.