Marilyn Wegner, Birthing the Universe
Crow-Mask
Stasha Strange
I long to be the unbroken chalice,
a cup of milk-light,
naïve enough to trust the lips that drink.
But the world stains everything.
It shatters softness,
feeds on it like carrion,
so I stitch a mask from crow feathers,
black shine sharp enough to blind.
I never know how much to yield.
A whisper? A caw?
Sometimes I crack open too wide,
and the shadows swarm my marrow.
Other times I clamp shut,
talons clinking,
and people call me cold,
a blade of obsidian moonlight.
They do not see
how survival writes its own spell:
fierce is the language
my body was forced to learn.
Off-putting? Perhaps.
But better to be a storm
than a sacrifice.
I ache for the girl I once was–
soft-skinned, bird-boned,
dreaming in the open sky.
Yet I know she would not survive here.
So I carry her as a ghost,
tucked behind my mask,
teaching me how to breathe
through feathers and fire.
Stasha Strange
I long to be the unbroken chalice,
a cup of milk-light,
naïve enough to trust the lips that drink.
But the world stains everything.
It shatters softness,
feeds on it like carrion,
so I stitch a mask from crow feathers,
black shine sharp enough to blind.
I never know how much to yield.
A whisper? A caw?
Sometimes I crack open too wide,
and the shadows swarm my marrow.
Other times I clamp shut,
talons clinking,
and people call me cold,
a blade of obsidian moonlight.
They do not see
how survival writes its own spell:
fierce is the language
my body was forced to learn.
Off-putting? Perhaps.
But better to be a storm
than a sacrifice.
I ache for the girl I once was–
soft-skinned, bird-boned,
dreaming in the open sky.
Yet I know she would not survive here.
So I carry her as a ghost,
tucked behind my mask,
teaching me how to breathe
through feathers and fire.