by Sienna Tristen
tale i:
the first time i called you bird. after you made habit of flickering through the window, before the first feathers sprouted—the claws had something to do with it, your glassy claws balanced on the branch of my collarbone. & the preening, too, the way you cocked your head in the direction of my tick-picking fingers, eager for a grooming that would not sour inside your keratin. i called you bird for your hundred heartbeats a minute, for your perching poise, always one startle away from taking off, for your head like a storm-crow’s wing, dark & soft & skewed by prevailing winds. as long as i’ve known you, you have yearned toward a molting of your humanity.
tale ii:
the nights you try to make your flight a fleeing. how many times i have found you struggling to shed limbs, slough skin, crack the eggshell of your skull & emerge free of the body & its flesh-eating urges—
i don’t want to hurt anyone you said
i don’t want anyone to hurt me you said
i would give anything to be like you, you said.
like me: bower unbreached by your adversary, belvedere void of your enemy. auroral high place touched by no impulse but the wind. the unkind say plantlife, the scholars say acespec, but you just dip your beak into the sweet peat of my hair & say lucky, curl your claws in my collarbone with exquisite, excruciating need.
tale iii:
the day we hatched a rebellion against romance. there was no known plumage to match our attachment (lovers—semantically ambiguous, presumptuous on several counts; boyfriend & girlfriend—ontologically false, as you are quasi-boy & i am pseudo-girl), but to call us nothing would be to pluck us raw. we laid a new clutch of nomenclature, unfettered, refeathered, put name to our anarchy. at last language lithe enough to ground me in altitude. at last language light enough to hold you aloft.
bird: (n.) one who is best adored by way of breadcrumb & cloudbank & song.
nest: (n.) one who will safehold the robin-blue dollops of your trust until what’s inside is ready to take wing.
SIENNA TRISTEN is an artist and author of speculative fiction and poetry who explores queer platonic partnership, radical compassion, and mythmaking in their work. Her award-winning fantasy novel The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming came out from The Shale Project in 2018. They are currently working on its sequel
my body the nest can be found in Augur Magazine Issue 3.2.
