Desire and Flight
I swear that I had left my window closed,
yet there she was, a darker patch of night:
too real for disbelief, all golden skin
and darkness, and the sound of beating wings
that I could never see; the stuff of myth.
The air was cold and steaming with her breath.

When she arrived, she stole my very breath
and kept it captive, window still unclosed.
That very moment, opening to myth,
I welcomed in this creature spun from night;
she wrapped me warmly with her hidden wings
and feathertips made furrows in my skin.

No stranger to the touch of skin on skin,
still, I was unprepared for mingled breath,
for promises of flight on vivid wings,
discovery of secrets undisclosed.
I didn't see, that first impassioned night,
that I began to change, embracing myth.

She told me what it was to be a myth,
to crave the kiss of sunlight on her skin
but need the sanctuary found by night.
Belief in dreams, in magic, gives her breath;
the disbelief of minds too tightly closed
is poison that can cripple gryphon wings.

She begged for me to join her, said that wings
would grow from barren shoulders, that a myth
might then be born. I feared the window, closed,
could bar me from returning to my skin;
and so I trembled, tearful, held my breath
and watched her slip away into the night.

Now I dream of gryphons every night,
of lovers finding freedom on the wing.
Despite my choice, I long to taste her breath,
the woman who once wakened me to myth,
and feel her feathers warm against my skin.
My window, should she come, is never closed.

My arms, once closed, are open now to myth;
I long to see her wings against the night--
I'd give my breath to leave this lonely skin.
circa the deviantART account tessuraea