Before The Dawn

There is a girl. She stands on the edge of the fall, in flowing silk and satin. Her hair cascades down her back and over her shoulders in ebony spirals, thick as forest and holding secrets, and shells and braids and beads. She turns to me and her eyes flash. They sparkle, mesmerising. Their deep blackness seeming to pull you in. Her head tilts, there is no hint of a smile as she lifts her hand to caress my face.

I put my hand on hers, her dress shimmering in the moonlight, the silver diadem, glinting. She glitters as she moves, flawless beauty evident in her every step. She whispers, her lips barely moving, barely breaking their perfect form,

‘You’ve done this.’ she’s pained, I understand. I know the riddle, I know the omission.

‘I had no choice.’ I say. I can’t help but see the hurt in her eyes. It is what I will see to the end of time, what I’ve done to her.

‘There must have been another way,’ she replies, starting to raise her voice, ‘you could have chosen some other way!’ she says, finishing by shouting at me, exasperated.

We’ve had this argument from Dawn til dusk through every day, and I fear we will even though the reckoning comes so soon. There is no way to resolve it, no way to change, what’s done is done, there is nothing that can take the terrible fate away, off our hands.

We chose this. We chose it the moment we first kissed, the moment our bodies touched, the moment we became one. Eternal. But I can’t help but think it was my fault, my fault that we ended up like this, my fault that we had this destiny thrust into our open arms. We had no place, she was a flawless beauty, she was a perfect hyperbole of all that is pure.

I cannot escape her, wherever I look, whatever I do, I see glimpses of her, small tokens. A lily on a pond, the lonely snowbell, it’s head bowed in denial of it’s true meaning. She will never accept, though I tell and tell, the truth is not as blatant for her to see as for me, or any other soul who peeks at her, shying away in awe.

I am nothing. I stand next to her and do not deserve. She is a fool, a fool to accept me, a fool to love me, I speak to her of this, but she waves it away, certain she can do no better. The woman is blind, but she chooses me, day after day, she chooses, so I gratefully stay, cling to her in honour.

I brush a loose curl behind her ear, her whole body shimmering white in the night,

‘My love, there was no other way.’

We are gods.

-- written by Cat Lee