kiya

Twenty-Two

They want the thrill,
The permission,
Of pretending
To be afraid—

So they say "Man,"
For the joy of their
Rational
Battle.

But only until
A voice asks
For peace
Or sanity.

And then?

They listen
Like they're hearing
A woman.

That's the catch.
You can't ask
The plane
To stop bombing.

Lavender

I don't know
What you found to love
In the place
That hurt me

But I hope
When you can
Cleave
To it

That it welcomes you in
And brings you
Every blessing
You have
Been
Cheated
Of

Slick, aka Facecat, aka Licky Slicky, aka Editorial Assistant Cat, aka My Obnoxious Freaky Boy, aka The Creature, collapsed suddenly yesterday afternoon with what appeared to be catastrophic asthmatic pneumonia. (He has had the not-uncommon chronic feline sniffle for some time.) He was a good boy and came to his humans when he noticed things were badly wrong, and we got him to the hospital, but he declined abruptly around 3am. I got the kids up so we could troop over to the hospital to say goodbye. The younger two remained in the ICU while we eased the inevitable.

Slick is survived by his full sister Lilybelle and his adopted brother and sparring partner, Robin, as well as his shellshocked human family.

He was a good boy. Every time I talked to the vets, they said what a good boy he was. He loved getting up in my business and poking me in the face. He didn't know how to sit on laps so he would stand on people and rearrange frequently. Sometimes he would sort of crouch on my lap so that he could lick my fingers while I was typing and try to chew on my knuckles. He got on top of all kinds of furniture. When we were away for a week the catsitter called partway through in a panic saying he hadn't been seen, and we found him chilling on top of some shelving in the basement storage all "What? You know I don't like strangers." He had finally started chilling out and letting people who don't live here see and even pet him. He loved halves of plastic Easter eggs and would sing about them and play cat hockey with him. He was the best cat at understanding English. I could tell him "Timmy is not in the well" and he would stop yelling at me. He sounded, as KJ would say, like a squeaky door hinge. He used to spend a lot of time in the basement ceiling, and it's possible that old insulation up there is why he was asthmatic. The other cats would beg for protein scraps when people were making dinner (well, Robin begged; Lil would steal whatever Robin got) but his response to such things was, "What do you think I am, an animal?" Sometimes he did an adequate job of pretending to have a dignity, even though it was a lie. His belly was not a trap; he denied all existence of bellies. He had a white Superman-shield shaped shirtfront and two white stripes on his front right toe.

He was a good boy.

Dramatis Personae:

Celyn, who is perhaps unfortunately in his element (chaos and fairy nonsense)
Robin, who wants to go home
with Greymalkin, who wants his wings back
Izgil, who wants to know things
Viepuck, who was falling back on faking it and improv

When we left the party we were deciding what to do after demolishing a redcap fortress.

( There were a lot of trophies in the trophy room, many of them grisly. )

Visible

To learn young
That
To be seen
Is
To be hurt

To discover
That
To be seen
Wrong
Bleeds tears

To wish
That
To be seen
Were
Even real

To know
That
To be seen
Is
Never simple

To wonder
If
Being seen
Will
Work out
This time.

PSA

Did you know
Mental health is worse
In the population
We're trying to kill?

It's why
They can't be allowed
To be
Like that.

It's for their own good,
You see.
These laws
Are protection.

Left to their own devices
They make bad choices,
Which lead to
Negative outcomes,
Like living.

Watcher

They say angels
Are genderless
But he refused to come
Unarmed:

He tore an eye
From his feathered wing
And opened its color
To paint his lids

He had not been shaped
To have
A blade
So he made one.

His hands opened
With gifts:

These are your weapons,
Use them.
Become strong
And beautiful.

Dramatis Personae:

Viepuck, the eldritch tween (with his familiar the flying purple octopus Es*tiaslos)
Izgil, the respectable older gent who brings moon to the moonless
Celyn, whose sense of etiquette was more useful than his stabbing honestly
Robin, who is unspeakably exhausted about fairy bullshit
(and getting his own line)
Greymalkin, wingless gryphon with PTSD and an entirely reasonable resulti9ng attitude

When we left off we had just been asked to go close a portal to the Feywild in a way that meant it would not reopen.

( So we planned to go through the portal into the realm of the evil fey. )

Not my best way to start a year, honestly, this state of mind.



ETA ... okay random shuffle is being perfect in a lolsob way.

Time is like a bullet from behind
I run for cover just like you
Time is like a liquid in my hands
I swim for dry land just like you

Time is like a blanket on my face
I try to be here just like you
Time is just a fiction of our minds
I will survive and so will you

We are the only ones right now that are celebrating
And we are joining hands right now
We are the only ones right now that are suffocating
We are the dying ones right now

As the water grinds the stone
We rise and fall
As our ashes turn to dust
We shine like stars

Here's the whole thing, and welp.

Official video.