Changeling

By Lynette Mejia

It’s the memory of that 

fingertip I rage against, its soft 

but insistent implications, asking

too many questions, making choices

for me when I’m still stone, 

still untouchable, still

unknowable.

Some days I’m a fairy child, half 

moss, part bird. Then, I’m the capricious 

nature of things, with an ineffable will

and the talons to back it up. I’m

the lightning strike on the edge of one

storm and in others I roll, heavy with thunder.

Once I had a lover with wings as black 

as midnight. He showed me how to speak 

with the dead, how to take a pale hand, 

to kiss it for a wish you could later sell.

Some nights I sit upon your windowsill,

your whispered prayers and warm breath 

rising like an offering, moistening my skin

on its way to the stars. In that moment

I want to kiss you, fill you with a taste

of eternity, or maybe rake my claws across your back.

*

Lynette Mejia writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror prose and poetry from the middle of a deep, dark forest in the wilds of southern Louisiana. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Rhysling Award, and the Million Writers Award. You can find her online at www.lynettemejia.com.