mildew, cold on an unused shelf, the smell of disuse prevalent in your house. a dampness in the sheets that suggests absence rather than physicality. glacial, you follow me apace.

in the sky there are a thousand stories of all the ways i could hunt and harm you: i could send a monster, i could use a sword, i could let the thousand barbs of your ego drag you across the searing sun. i could let you die, squalid, entranced by your own reflection, on this silent afternoon in midwinter.

but where then would i go? in what bed would i purl my tiny rages, string my soft hates out along the brittle branch of someone else's mouth? when the egg cracked they thought i was a condor but in this age, i am pure, i am rotted, and my claws are longer than the carrion i seek.