I wear all black with saddle leather boots, for work.
Straightened hair business.
As I walk, I unfurl my energetic wings.
My mantle.
Cold steel blades slide out through my shoulder blades.
Clinking.
I shake them. Loosening.
They respond when I dress this way.
I take care to align each blade so they will fold away properly.
Inappropriate for the task at hand.
I call forth the other side.
gossamer feathers.
Carefully unfurling.
One flies a’loose, fluttering into the breeze like a shining bit of a spider’s web.
The feathers still smell of you from last night.
From when you came to my mind with your pain clear in your
energetic, non-corporeal eyes.
Come in: I told you silently.
You stepped behind my back.
Squared with my shoulder blades.
Your pain began pouring out.
I collected you in my steely wings. Making a box.
A safe place. An unobservable vacuum within which you may thrash and wail.
I dropped down my feather mantle for you.
Draping the steely interior in celestial down.
Those who would prey upon your moment of weakness
slay themselves upon my well-honed metallic feather-blades, trying to break in.
Ships, at night, on a rocky coast with no lighthouse.
With each slam of your energetic body against the walls of my wings, you felt nothing but goose down envelope you.
I took great care to ensure this.
You fell asleep inside. I opened the space, covered you, cupped your hipbone, and slept aside you.
WrittenCasey 