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Monsters in the Age of Men

 I saw a woman in the grocery store. 


I saw her true shape, beneath raven black hair and pale eyes. She bore great wings, wings that carried endless plains across them and above roared storms, bruised clouds cracking and howling. Lightning split the sky into so many shattered pieces. She stared back at me, surrounded by the tiny people who so long ago had feared and worshipped darkening skies, crashing crescendoes. 


We found each other out in the night, behind the building where trees and grass and vines grew untamed like in memories of vanished wilderness. I felt electricity when our lips met, felt spiking painful potential when I caressed her bronzed skin. In my ear I heard thrumming and pounding, shrieking wind. Building and building up into the sky, strong enough to crack mountains and scatter the stars. 


I gave her the sea, brine and crushing depths between every kiss. I unfurled myself beneath massive wings, sprawling and armored and impossible, flashing colors to match every hissed breath, every wingbeat. My eyes receded because in the Abyss eyes are but a luxury, and all that remained were thin wavering spines. Golden cilia seeking, seeking, seeking. 


We shared our tears, our needs. Desperate remnants of an age when monsters ruled Men.

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