They were waiting for me, as it turns out, beyond the places where the dunes
meet the rolling sea of desertification; the empty fields, withering in the heat
of night’s endless noon. Jalan Berseh’s wandering tunes
and sleepless benches, where migrants are refused
a space to sit. A space to be heard. A space made new
for everyone.
Suicune—I thought this was what you wanted.
I thought this was what a walking wake was meant to have started:
I thought seeing you, in the flesh, would have finally meant more than what the heart
thought would one day become laughter.
What one day the mind felt would never turn to
psychoemotional slaughter.
What one day the body and soul would remember, for good reasons,
forever.
Instead all I saw was you, alone, adrift, more of a haunted,
ghastly memory of a time
when I let you sit in my lap, and cry—
and I believed your tears.
I believed it when you said it was your time, and mine
to be free. I believed it when you lied
about who you loved more; her, or her, or me.
I believed it when you let Suicune go into the world willingly
to bite off your toes to spite your face, and your knees, and your entire fucking body
made of clay, which is why that metaphor is not actually
something threatening, or violent. In a body made of sand, nothing actually
ever stays the same.
How many Suicunes do you actually know?
This one is battered, and so badly hurt, and flayed—
but this dreamrunner has never spared itself the pain.
This fighting aurora has never not brought the rain.
This is the North Wind, bruised and tattered,
but still an unendingly azure purifying flame.