SONGS OF OURSELVES

❦ possess

the markings on your surface

your speckled face

flawed crystals hang from your ears

i couldn't gauge your fears

i can't relate to my peers

i'd rather live outside

i'd rather chip my pride

than lose my mind out here

❧ frank ocean, "seigfried"

Okay, so the song went a bit like this:

Poallu played the first notes when he, in all of his infinite wisdom, set his sights on a woman who was only vaguely aware of his attention and intentions.

Telvi Sageye was a pious mortal who called a secluded commune in West Seed her home for a decade. The religious residents of West Seed refused to marry or reproduce, opting instead to paint fine art and craft magnificent furniture that eventually decorated the powder rooms of powerful politicians like the potentate.

Telvi couldn't go a week without smashing her hand with a hammer and her tables often slanted precariously to one side but she was well-liked among her peers and the commune's elders. She compensated for her middling chair-making skills in other, arguably more important, ways.

For instance, Telvi never missed a sundown prayer. She strived to not make too much noise. She obeyed the commune's three hundred rules and cared for the sickly and only ate her fair share. For Telvi, the hours most people wasted arguing and disagreeing were instead occupied burning offerings at an altar and memorizing hymns written by maliibs long forgotten.

Entranced and hungry, Poallu sipped her tender faith nightly, a consistent source of power so rich an entire temple's worth of devotion could not compare. To Poallu, Telvi's trust tasted of fire-charred lamb, fresh blackberry jam, and the vestiges of a playful daydream. It burned down his throat and spread warmth throughout his being. The heat was as close as he could come to living. Breathing.

Telvi Sageye did not stand a chance.

And that sweet mortal creature, Poallu decided one evening after she retired to her cot, would be the mother of his child. He would take part in the very human act of creation without the messy sexual requirement and reward her chaste piety by designating her as his host.

He alone, out of his wayward, indifferent, troubled siblings, would conceive a physical child. A child of love. Loveschild. And such an honor to birth the will of a divinity! His generosity would overwhelm Telvi and she would double-down on her prayers, nourishing Poallu's bottomless appetite for years to come.

(he did not request her permission, which she might've granted if he thought to ask, and did not seek out her opinion on the dangerous matter of rural childbirth in a cult of artisans who specifically avoided the act.)