ODES OF VIGILANT ADORNMENT.

Mercy me, I shall be goddamned should I desire my insanity by simply watching you breathe.

[holyisthenameofmyruthlessaxe]

“Let us keep our stars to ourselves and we shall pray to no one. Let us eat what makes us holy.”

— Say Grace, Emily Jungmin Yoon

[amabellum]

BENEATH THE TIDES OF ALL-SEEING

There is no god here in these flesh-hours, though your jaw is a temple and your hips strike like an axe— the labrys I injure myself against.

i.

The youngest of them, they handed you in chalices far-stained with the blood of your fallen brethren. You bathed in their ashes before the roses were to stain your cheeks, with a dawning cry to pierce stronger than everyone they once called blessing. This world recognises you as Charis, of grace, eminent yet transient. Charissa Abraxas Damaskinos. 

They thought pleading with the Church to save you was futile, as you were of the most charming but ever so frail. The lilac in your eyes and hair faded in each day’s passing, and the eternity took pity on your untainted harmony, bespeaking of no blotch of crimson to etch onto your fingers for two pairs of feet to stand still, and all the things that glimmer are not only gold but your fate too. It was a delayed success with so much cost over the three generations of abstinence, especially when no boys in your family ever survived past your age, either brittle or became as plague. Prime must you be now, bearing laughter and irony towards those who taught you to pick your urns.

They raised you with order and decorum, taught you to be quiet if not silent. You were brought up well regardless, with manners and faith flowing in your veins. To the prying eyes of the world, you were caught as easy to keep; following orders is in your reflex, you keep secret as a pawn should have been ‒‒‒ are you? What may be of worth beneath the most reserved of your face and the charms left burning in those lilac, ever so careful and tender as sheets are to bask beneath rose otto?

[amabellum]

ALONGSIDE THE WRATH OF OVERMERCY

Here I am, at your thighs—lilac-lit pools of ablution. Take my body and make of it— a Nation, a confession. Through you even I can be clean.

ii.

You grew up in no similarity with any of your brothers and sisters as you did not wail for fallen petals, but rather you were a father of entirely different thing. Cradled on your fingertips was water, from a single speck to the convergence of waves and riptides. You could twist it like puppies and whales, but you still dishonour yourself with callouses from residing battle axes and claymores, as if you would ever raise that to someone, not with an oath they swore you by. War cry blooms in your lungs, as your oath strangles the bloodline curse by their necks and limbs. Certainly far before you do, throughout any overexertion that may as well dry your faith and fracture your soul. Then again we bask in it, it is what we ask for he is ordained and blessed, it is what makes up of him, as well as what of our cost. 

[amabellum]