Harpy

The feathered girl wakes up between birth and suicide,
alongside a man whose hatred she'll never know.
She never lived fast enough to die, she says she never
really lived at all – but I don't believe her. Her wings -
now shriveled and rusted – were once used for something.
The purity has faded at this late stage, the feathered girl is
angelic no more and I'm just waiting and hoping for her to die.

The watchful girl wakes up between blindness and insanity;
the window closed – the silver perch on which she used to sit
has fallen into disuse. The silver is tarnished with semen and blood;
disease and death in liquid form. She's forgotten her self-destructive
tendencies now she's in a family way, but the soul of the suicidal
bird – a rapist, if you will – lies dormant beneath the feathers.
The milk coagulates around her talons, it's all over for her now.