Leda & I

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America flag printed on his torso,

as if he came back a coward, not a man,

a trembling flag, frayed and torn

from the weight of it all-

I dream of the bombshell

you’d drop.

Chew through scraps

less than what’s left of your pride,

I feel the violence and the silence

lick my skin like a nervous prayer.

All I need is that fortunate mistake,

shaped like a man with good intentions,

the first time I felt swooped off my feet,

latching onto the thin air,

clutching at the pieces of myself that fell

as I fell with them,

a collision of bodies and breath,

a wreckage where I knew you’d disappear

before I could even catch my name in your

mouth.

But I cherished it—

the crash, the collision,

the wings that pressed me into dust,

heavy chest, full of honey, full of blood,

spilled and sacred—

a secret I carry in my throat

like a scream held back,

still to make.

Over time it formed—a bliss,

something blooming tender and strange,

just when you thought the world was done.

You disappear, you return,

and the path of destruction becomes

the only map I know.

What was once violence

now a mark of transformation,

each time I come back to you,

each time the story of the wound waits

to be told again.

I burn

but it carries me forward,

each scar a reminder of the crash,

a prophecy written in shards.

Shattered, reborn,

a creature walking out of wreckage,

dragging wings through the dust

and the rubble of the world.

You, me, we

all of us,

beasts, lovers, prophets, and the unfortunate

Like Leda and I

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