SONGS OF OURSELVES

❦ psalms

you look like me when you lie

boiled blood star shifts in the window of my eye

you put warm salt to the stitch

and I suffer for the sky that you shook nine times

you smell like burnt hibiscus

i still feel blessed even when we're bitching

you stole my spine for a minute

so I cut my hair just to make you smile

❧ arlo parks, "portra 400"

In his prime. His hey-day. At the absolute height of his worship.

Xosa appraised countless hip-to-waist ratios with the same keen aesthetic eye jewelers have for filthy blood diamonds.

By the mid-thirteenth century, also known to learned folk as the Age of Queen Alucris, Xosa could gauge the span of a full-grown human pelvis right down to the very decimal without a measuring tape or a fancy equation. The proportions simply came to him, enticing with their simplicity, whispering "choose this one" or "pick me" or "look again".

At the time, mortal hips were extremely easy to come by, constantly thrown at Xosa due to his vague reputation as a quirky (and yet conventional), powerful (and yet restrained), attractive (and yet menacing) High Divinity. And Xosa, who was rewarded so handsomely simply for, well, being, had no other choice but to catch. With both hands.

Naturally, nothing made Death feel more alive than mimicking the act Poallu claimed as his masterwork, especially with his loyal, loving adherents. After a few thousand years of blessing a few thousand beds, the feral chase was more of a steady stroll and the heated thrill more of a necessary chore.

Hips and thighs and asses were a lyra a dozen and Xosa priced them all the same, for he wasn't a picky god. He assumed himself an equal opportunist when it came to handling, or, mishandling, willing mortals of all shapes, genders, ages, and creeds.

So when Xosa laid on his side, Songs of Ourselves propped over his face like a stiff veil, eyes cut in the direction of his Twin Flame's rolling narration, he couldn't help but notice the exact curvature and angle of Sunkanmi's hips.

(blast it all.)

Sunkanmi regaled her audience with a cutesy version of her childhood trauma, unaware of how closely Xosa inspected the fold between her thigh and her hip bone, how he tried, in a desperate pinch, to pretend her hips did not fit his exact ideal specifications, as if she were made for him, or vice versa.

Sunkanmi assumed Xosa was either sleeping, actively ignoring her, or, against all possible odds, reading her favorite book, when in all actuality he hadn't comprehended a single word.