the ☀ ;; {percy series}

[я𝑜𝓈𝑒]

arms to the ground.

{ percy delacroix }

"you are no saint,
you are a sinner
by blood,
fool."

and i said that i knew it
to be the truth.

stained glass windows
glared at me
from the sidewalk.
the ringing of the church bells
and the sound of the choir
rising high into the air
were needles
against my eardrums.

i remember those nights
at our old house -
tiny and pale blue with a black roof
and a white porch
with a swing -
when calypso would check beneath my bed
for monsters
and tuck me in
and tell me a story.

but now i know the monsters
she searched for
were not under my bed.
they are right in front of me.
they are within me.

i don't know
if they were always there
or if they writhed
beneath a disguise.
all i know
is now.

all i know
is the scars
across my back.
i don't remember who
or what
carved the marks
into my flesh.

i just see them in the mirror
and i know.

today it is cold
and gray.
the skies are ghostly
and gray.

calypso holds my hand
and when we lock eyes
i remember
that the monsters
are right in front of us.

she is peering into the eyes
of one of them.

calypso once said
that she took my frame
into the palms of her hands
and sculpted them into the bones
of a crook, a savage, a warrior, a wolf.

but i shook my head
and i told her
that it was i
who destroyed the little girl
who stared into the stained glass windows
and traced her gaze along the stories
painted into the glass,
despite how they burned her eyes.

the words hung in the air,
heavy
and gray.

my sister wears
a heavy pack
on her back.

"do you want to take a trip?"

"why?"

"trust me."

(i have always trusted her,
put every bit of my faith
in the palms of her hands.)

"okay."

"pack your things."

"where are we going?
how long will we-"

"you'll see."

i disappear into my room
and when i return
i have a bag hanging
from my shoulders.
and we walk out the door.

("trust me,"
she said.
i am taking a hell
of a leap of faith.)

calypso laces her hand in mine.
she tugs me along,
leading me down a labyrinth
of sidewalks.
immersed in silence,
i feel as if black water
like thick tar
has filled me up-
my lungs, my windpipe, my mouth.

her lips are a hard line
on her stone face.
i wait
in the blackness of silence
silence
silence.

and when she does speak at last,
the words are hollow
and the rhythm of her speech
keeps time to the heartbeat
roaring in my chest.

"there is something
you need to know."

my eyes trail along the lines of her jaw.
it is locked and rigid.
they trace up to her eyes
to meet her gaze
but calypso is staring at the ground
as if it has fallen out beneath her,
as if it has opened up to a void.

there is a pause.
calypso looks at me
and in her eyes i swear i can see
that she regrets that she dared
utter the words.

silence envelops us
like the sea,
suffocating me,
once more,
but my wonder-
it rages and turns and twists
like a serpent in my mind-
forces the words
out of my mouth.

"tell me.
and don't hold anything back."

but she only
burns her eyes
into mine
and holds her breath
as if the air is filled with ash
and smoke that is black
as tar.

"tell me."
it is not a request,
it is a demand.

"if i need to know
as you said i do,
tell me,
calypso."

and she does.
when the words leave her mouth
everything in my vision
blurs together.
it is like the world
is painted in oil pastel
and someone has taken their hand
and dragged it cruelly along everything
there is to see.

. . .


{ "intro" by m83. }

[я𝑜𝓈𝑒]

far from the rivers.

{ percy delacroix }

the words
that slip out of her mouth
sound like a death sentence.
they are laced with something
i cannot quite call poison
or darkness
or despair.
perhaps they are all three
or a mixture of them.

all i know is
her words
are the weight
of the sky
and they fall
right on my shoulders.

they are grave
and darker than the heart
that throbs in the hollow of my chest.

"it's over,"
calypso says.

i think
there is a part of me
deep down within
that knows what she means.

but every other fiber
of my very being
lays bricks between my head
and her words.

"what's over?"
i ask her.
but it sounds
like a plea-
please,
please let this be
anything that will not destroy me.

there's shadows in her eyes
when her gaze meets mine.
by the way she drills holes
in my bones
while clutching my hand
to ensure that i know
i am in the arms of safety,
it feels like she's inviting me
to my own funeral.

"it would be better
if i showed you
rather than if i told you,"
she tells me.

when i remain a statue
standing against the veils
of white
that drift down from the skies
as she walks forwards
and the joining of our hands
breaks,
she calls out once more.

"come with me, percy.
trust me."

i nod-
"trust me," she said.
and i do trust her
with every piece of me.
i always have.

i take her hand.
and we walk on
into the snow
and the wonder.

a shadow hands over us
as we walk hand in hand.
i can feel it
just as i can feel
the winter biting my skin.

. . .


{ "intro" by m83. }

[я𝑜𝓈𝑒]

grace in our tears.

{ percy delacroix }

as we trudge
through kingdoms of snow,
calypso spins stories
from her tongue.

endless fables spill
from her head
to the open air.
they are magnificent
and beautiful.

she tells
of a little phoenix
who soared with gaiety
and might
into the skies
until the rising sun
stained the world
gold, scarlet, and rose,
and she could reach the stars.

the little phoenix
never returned to the ground,
for the ground
was not where she belonged.
it is the stars
that are her home
and forever
they will cradle her in their arms
and she will soar
into infinity.

on the way,
i do not ask again
where we are going
or why.
i only walk
alongside calypso
and listen to her stories
unfold and flourish.

we walk
until our feet are aching
and sore
and darkness begins to engulf
everything there is too see.

the stars begin to emerge
from the game
of hide and seek
they played with the sun.

calypso steers us off the path
and finds a little haven
where the trees cover us
in shadows.
it is there that calypso unpacks
and sets up a tent for the two of us.
she lights a fire,
where we sit
in the arms of warmth,
with light spilling onto our faces.

i watch the flames,
how they dance
so elegantly.
they seem so delicate
but i know all too well
that flames can be beasts
just as easily
as they can be delicate dancers.

calypso tells more stories
by the light of the fire
until our eyelids
grow heavy with sleep
and the fire dies down
to embers and ash.

we fall asleep
swathed in blankets
in the shelter of our tent
and bathed in the stars.

. . .


{ "intro" by m83. }

[я𝑜𝓈𝑒]

high on a fever.

{ percy delacroix }

we awaken
to the sky shattering
in the arrival of dawn.
the sun forces away
the blanket of darkness
that long enveloped us
in its saving embrace.

the sun is a painter.
it lets rose tumble
in a sea
across the sky.
it pours golden
in entire buckets,
letting it run
like rivers
from the faded stars
to the horizon.

it splatters just a bit
of crimson
around the horizon,
just enough
for my eyes to capture.

the sun is a painter
and the sky is its canvas.

when we rise from our beds
and pack our things,
we immediately delve
right back
into our journey.

the roads we take this morning
slowly begin to seem
familiar to me.
it's like i can see
the ghosts of my own footprints
in the gravel and dirt.

i just can't
quite put my finger
on where exactly
we are.

the back of my mind tells me
that it remembers
ever so vaguely
these bends in the road.
but when i walk this earth
it feels like i had left it behind
an eternity ago.

"where are we going?"
i pry at last,
when my wonders demand it.

calypso is solemn
and stone to the core
when she replies.
"you know, you do."

but i see something
behind those eyes.
they are masks
and for a moment
i think i see something-
fear, despair, something-
emerge from the darkness
of secrecy
but it is gone
the moment it comes.

we pass by
an oak tree
with an old tree house
lounging in its branches.

i know this place
all to well.

and suddenly
it hits me
and it's like
a boulder
has fallen on my chest.

i stop dead
in my tracks
and my body
turns from flesh
to ice.

. . .


{ "intro" by m83. }

[я𝑜𝓈𝑒]

somebody heal me from my pain.

{ percy delacroix }

the scars in carved
into my back
from that dastardly place
begin to throb.
they are jagged and white
but as my blood broils
beneath my skin,
ripping open my veins,
i swear
i can feel them
turning red
red
red.

i know these paths,
i know them all too well.

"i'm not going back there,"
i tell her.

my hands, balled into fists
by my sides,
are stone.

she is leading me
with a beacon in her hand-
"trust me"-
back to the forsaken place
we had left
in the dust.
she is leading me
with a vague promise on her lips-
"there is something
you need to know"-
back to the church
where my knees
broke
before the steeple
and those marble steps.

i have had wanderlust
and i have been reckless-
but i am no fool
and i am no masochist.

she must feel my anger-
it seeps through my veins
(oh, how they broil)
and my flesh
and fills the air
with poison-
because her eyes turn to mine
and they call out something
between an order and a plea.

"listen,"
her eyes say
as they bleed
and burn into mine.

her voice
rolls through the air
in harmony with the silent
"listen,
listen to me."

i wait
for the words.
i wait
for their coldness.
i wait
for their crackle
like a whip
breaking my back.

i wait
but i am met
with the softness
of concern.

"you need to see this.
you must."

"is that as my leader
or as my sister?"

"you already know the answer."

my mind contorts
within its own thoughts.

i ponder
if i will lie broken
before the day is done.

. . .


{ "intro" by m83. }

[я𝑜𝓈𝑒]

i'm reaching closer.

{ percy delacroix }

we walked
for miles.
my feet grew
broken
and sore.
but calypso walks
like a machine;
she is relentless
and piercingly strong.

i recognize
these slopes in the ground,
these valleys,
these trees.
every last one of them
once had a name-
but it is long forgotten to me;
i scratched it all away
with my fingernails.

she leads me
up over the hill
to the place i loved-
to the place i hate.

i wait
for the steeples
and the glare
of the stained glass windows
boring into my very being.
i wait
for the gleam of the marble
against the harsh touch of the sun
and the great bell
hanging in the tallest tower.

as our feet carry us
up over the hill,
i keep my gaze trained on the ground;
i don't think i can bear
to avert my eyes
to face my past.

"look up, percy,"
calypso says.
before i can shake my head,
her voice breaks the air once more.
"look up;
you can cry in front of me."

("trust me.")

curiosity gets the better of me
and my eyes find themselves
looking on ruins.

i thought my heart was hollow,
that the church reached within me
and pulled all the light out
in tangled threads
and cast it out into the darkness.

(but i'm not afraid anymore-
calypso taught me not to fear the dark.
and then, i think,
i became it.)

i feel something inside-
a spark and at the same time
a coldness.
i expect rage to invade my veins
in a sinister rush of red,
but it feels as if my body
has been encased in stone.

before me,
lying just beyond where i stand,
is the church-
what's left of it.

this kingdom has fallen.
towers of ash
and pieces of wood,
charred to a black
darker than the feral night,
are lit cruelly by the sun.

my knees break.

. . .


{ "holes in the sky" by m83 ft. haim. }

[я𝑜𝓈𝑒]

my stars dive lower.

{ percy delacroix }

it comes in threes.

gentle at first,
and then all at once.

phase one:
i can’t breathe.
my windpipe has been crushed
beneath the weight of this tragedy.
it’s like all the darkness inside me
has drained out through my veins
and rivulet by rivulet,
formed a great sea.
i am submerged-
wholly, completely.
like tar,
it fills me up,
chokes me,
it leaves bruises blooming across my neck
like a purple collar.

phase two:
i deny everything.
i try to reach my hands
up to the sky,
and catch the rainfall
in my palms.
i try to build a wall
with pebbles i picked off the road
and cement i made
out of the ash and tears.
but it’s all a lost cause.
i know it before i even hit the ground.

phase three:
. . .
i give in;
i lay down my stones
and let my fistful of ash
fall down to my feet;
i surrender.
the wall breaks down
against the legion bearing down on me.
i let their knives
plunge into my spine.
i let their blades
rip me apart
limb by limb,
rib by rib.

the world contorts,
the sky coils into its own ends.
and pain takes reign
of everything i know.

there is silence
for a moment.
it numbs my lips.

there is only my eyes
burning with the might of an ocean
that has forced itself from their brims.
there is only calypso’s gaze,
spiraling along the ruins that have been made
of a once darkly magnificent kingdom.
they drink it in
all over again.
(i am not the only one
who has given in.)

i can hardly speak but one word.
“who?” i demand.
(“who did this?”)

on my knees,
i am glass;
shattered,
broken in every way.

calypso leaves me to rot
in the stillness of cold silence
for several moments
as i just stare
with emptiness dancing
in my irises
at the remains.
i am staring at a graveyard.

her words ooze into the air
like ink-
a tattoo.
they bury themselves
into my ears
and my mind.

“our mother.”

. . .


{ "holes in the sky" by m83 ft haim. }

[я𝑜𝓈𝑒]

filling up lost memories.

"liar,"
i tell her.
"you're a liar!"
the words sound like a curse-
they hit her, slice into her
like one, too.

they burn my tongue like acid
but sorry is stuck somewhere
in the back of my mouth
slowly escaping down my throat.

because i know
that it is i who is the real liar.
i cannot believe my own words.

deep down
i know.

calypso tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear
and casts her steely blue gaze
down to the ground.
and then back up to meet mine-
our eyes bleed into one another,
a meld of blue, gold, and regret.

"you say that," she says,
"but you know it's true."
and then her voice softens.
"you wouldn't be in denial if you didn't."

my teeth are sinking
into my bottom lip-
and i can taste a drop
of blood on my tongue.

i do not need to apologize;
i think calypso can see
the hurt, the agony,
contorting my features,
hardening my eyes.

she reads me like an open book-
she always has.

"did people die?" i ask,
but i know the answer.
in truth
i do not feel sorry
that the church is only ash,
that a legacy of anguish
has been destroyed at the roots.
but i weep for the skeletons
the flames left behind.

calypso's head barely moves up and down,
but it is enough to know-
my stomach twists and turns within itself
and i feel ice creep onto my skin,
deep into my bones.

"there is more," she says,
and turns her back to me.

"follow me."

. . .


{ "holes in the sky" by m83 ft. haim. }