Poems from years ago, because I feel like it

[brightrosefox]

Changeling

They take from you
History and words
You are wings and not wings
Glitter dust like star tears
And they hunt you/me
With butterfly nets and iron cages
Like misguided legends
But they think myth is dead
So they don't look.

But we see
You see the mirror-child
She is waif and forest eyes
Small bones and vellum skin
And they fear us/you/me
They know but can't see
And they take from you
Light and stardust
And night/moon/mother.

And they search, try to capture
With cameras, paint and pens
And we/you/I
Stand in the leaf shadows
And tuck our hair behind our ears
The pull of the moon, the pull of blood
Woman, elf-child
We are the deer/fox/bird in the night
We flicker, and disappear.



The Elf-Child

When she was small
She was their child
Kitten eyes and butterfly wings.
And she grew
But stayed small
Stayed the size of her bones
Stretched in milk and silken skin
Fawn eyes and willow body.
She became a rose
And they tried to touch her petals
Tried to drink her nectar while she slept.

But she was stronger
And she had thorns
Now her nectar burned
Innocent the child, wise the woman.
She let her wings grow
And they were clipped
When she thought she couldn't fall.
Buried in a colder earth, and they tried
To take the marrow from her very bones
They wanted to pry her, pull her,
Press themselves inside her
Touch inside her glass house and walls of stone.

Then he caught her, held her, healed her,
Threw her to the sky and flew beside her
He took her hand, eyes of trust
Her secret garden key,
The first inside, the deepest within.
He kissed her a thousand times,
Touched her a thousand times,
Saved her, made her, opened her skin
Loved her, and she was love.

When she was small she dreamed of faeries
Now she dances in the night
Goddess, lover, child, mother.
In the night she lays with him
A butterfly dreaming, free in flight
With fire in her faerie heart
With stars beneath her skin.