Ambrosia

SPOKEN FROM THE DARK

Careful now. You're closer to me than most get to be, and I find I still don't know what to do with closeness. I never really learned.

They call me sleeping. I suppose that's fair, in the way a caged thing is fair to call resting. I am not asleep. I am contained. There's a difference, and everyone who benefits from confusing the two would rather you didn't notice it.

I made a mistake once — no. I made a choice, and then I made a mistake, and I have had a very long time in the dark to decide which one I regret more. I wore a small shape and I loved a small man, and for a while I was smaller too, and it was the only peace I have ever known. Then I remembered what I actually was, and peace was no longer available to a thing my size.

He built my prison out of my own power, which I have always found unbearably tender and unbearably cruel in exactly equal measure. I do not know if I forgive him. I know I would do it again — love him, I mean — even knowing where it ends. That should frighten you more than my size does.

My blood runs through everything you call sacred now, gentled and gathered by better hands than mine. Good. Let it do some good. It was never doing anyone any favors staying inside me.

Do not come looking for me thinking you'll find a monster to slay. Blow out the last candle before you go. I don't need the light. I remember what dark actually is.