(no subject)

The Bar was familiar, safer than Guppy's world, but it was still inside with people and Medusa had only managed an incoherant explanation before she ran for the backdoor.

"You okay?" Sam asked, not much of a moment later.

"Too many people," she replies, studying the stars and stretching out her wings. Her previously hidden wings, and thank everything that her dress is backless.

"Ah."

"Mmhm." Beat. "You don't have to stay out here, though. I mean, I'm just calming down and it's silly that-"

"It's a nice night," he says, shrugging off his jacket and undoing some buttons. His reward is a shy, pleased smile.

"Okay," she says softly. She doesn't fly, not in this dress, but she walks and stretches out all her six limbs and gradually, gradually, gradually the air of a caged wild creature fades. By the time she comes back, Sam's lounging on the seat-swing with her sandals next to his shoes.

"Feeling better?"

"A little," she admits, and then shakes her head. "I may have gotten into an argument with one of Frog's friends."

"Oh?"

"He was wrong. The Egyptians built the pyramids, not the aliens. And they line up with Orion because they are replicating the stars, and it's not some...I mean, humans are terribly clever, I'm not sure why they go about talking about things from outer space. Besides," Medusa says, tossing her head up slightly. "I've seen them."

"How did he take it?"

"Not terribly well. I'm afraid I may have told him that I'm basically immortal and then used his mental flailing to run off to Atton."

Sam just laughs. "Ah, Meda."

"I did okay?" she asks, sitting next to him and reaching out for his hand. Sam tangles his fingers with hers and grins.

"You did okay."

Poem: She Is Not A Book - Donald Powell

She is not a Book

She is not a book to pick up
and discard when you grow
bored or the final page is read. She is not a story to read, ponder and shelve away to look at later with affection from afar while dust gathers on the page.

She is a woman; ensouled. Terrible and beautiful in her wrath and twice more so in her joys. With dreams dreamt before your coming and ones she’ll vision into being after you’ve gone. She is human and thus immortal with a largeness of fate that far encompasses your own dreams for her, however petty or noble. She is beyond your judgment and always will be.

She is not a book she can’t be leant to friends.

She is a living, breathing, creature of this earth. Her warm, soft body that sparks up your desires has suffered pains and ecstasies that can’t be measured by you. She’s had 2am nightmares and 4am tossings and turnings, her own wrestlings with death, loneliness, sin and salvation.

She is unique and utterly herself and that is close to the heart of the reason you love her, the lay of the land in the heart region you love her.

She is not a book, a shoe, a pen or a fork. She’s not a carnival toy, a new car, a beach towel or a blanket.

She’s been walking strange or familiar streets long before you looked into each others eyes, touched and tasted each others skin. She’s been trying and succeeding, trying and failing, loving and being made love to, on her own paths, in places far beyond your limited capacity to hurt or heal for half a lifetime now. Her life journey only intersects with yours and while you hope, pray and grovel to God that those paths merge, there will be a harsh parting one day. You cannot carry her into the next world and she cannot carry you, argue at the gates of heaven though you might.

You only love her and are overcome for desire for her because she won’t be closed or shelved. She can’t be put in your pocket, slipped into your wallet, placed on your pillow(well maybe that), clasped wholly in your hand, blown updrafted into the air like dandelion snow. She is whole and holy in her wholeness. Her delights and despairs are her own. Well-served you are to know her in part and considered by her to be beloved. But she is unknowable, as we all are, on so many levels, offers ten-fold fascination beyond you’re your childlike needs, male ego desires, your thinking with your groin and your mind set on fire.

She is a woman; ensouled. Be thankful to have her, be the days numbered, to lighten your life and load and offer partial coming home.