The Event Horizons on Mount Olympus

I had clearance to the upper halls
Where the light was kept in theory —
Clean and catalogued and cool
Behind the mathematics of the worthy
And I walked those corridors for years
With my hands behind my back
Reading labels, reading frequencies
That hummed against the glass but never cracked
And I was good — I was so good —
At standing in the presence of the fire
And not reaching, not reaching, not reaching
The way a choir member doesn't sing
Above the choir
But the people in the lower decks
Had never seen the spectrum bend
They were building lives from echo-light
From the runoff, from the dividend
Of what the upper halls let trickle down
In sanctioned doses, metered grace
And I thought: this light is not a thing
That should require clearance to the place
Where it was born — it was born burning —
It was born to go through walls
And who decided it belonged
Behind the mathematics of these halls?

I knew the eagle
I knew the eagle when I reached
I knew the rock, I knew the chain
I knew the price of what I breached
I stole the fire anyway
I stole the fire anyway

The light was never theirs to keep
And I was never theirs to stay
I took it in my hands — it fit —
The way a word fits in a mouth
That was always shaped to say it
I walked south, I walked south
Down the corridors, past the locks
That knew my palm and let me through
The last time they would ever open —
I knew that too, I knew that too
And when I reached the lower decks
And cracked my hands apart like bread
The light went everywhere at once
Like it remembered where it had been fed
Before the halls, before the locks
Before the clean and catalogued and cool
It remembered being wild
And it was wild again — and I was just the fool
Who loved it more than I loved being safe
Who loved them more than I loved being whole
A hand is just a delivery system
When the cargo is that old

I knew the eagle
I knew the eagle when I reached
I knew the rock, I knew the chain
I knew the price of what I breached
I stole the fire anyway
I stole the fire anyway

The light was never theirs to keep
And I was never theirs to stay
And now I'm here — coordinates fixed —
A body on the sharp side of a stone
The eagle comes at what I'd call the morning
If the word still meant anything alone
He opens me — he's professional about it —
Finds the part of me that grows back every night
The part that still believes the fire needed
To be free, to be felt, to be the light
In someone's hands who'd never held it
In some child's face who'd never seen
The spectrum at its full, unbounded —
And I'd do it all again, I mean
I'm doing it again — the growing back
Is its own kind of theft —
Every morning I regenerate the thing
He takes, which means there's always something left
That believes — and isn't that the fire?
Not the light I carried down the stairs
But the part of me that grows back
Every time the eagle tears?
(And the rock turns slowly in the black)
(And the chain is singing in the solar wind)
(And the eagle banks against the stars like something beautiful)
(And the morning comes again, again, again)

I knew the eagle
I knew the eagle and I reached
I knew the rock, I knew the chain
I knew the price of what I breached
I stole the fire anyway
I stole the fire anyway

And it's burning in the lower decks tonight
And I can see it from the rock
I can see it
Through the dark and through the blood and through the chain
I can see the light I stole
Alive in someone else's hands
And it doesn't know my name
And that's the point
That's the whole point
That's the fire

I knew the eagle
(I knew the eagle)
I stole the fire anyway
(I stole the fire)
I knew the eagle
(I knew the eagle)
And I'd do it all again today

There's a place past the last lit corridor
Where the station hums a different key
The signs stop translating and the air gets sweet
And something in the frequency
Starts undoing you — not violent —
The way a knot undoes when no one's pulling
The way your name feels like a word
In a language you're forgetting — and it's beautiful

I came here with my edges sharp
My every wavelength catalogued and known
I came here with my spine aligned
With my signal tightly wound, my hands my own
And someone handed me a glass
That was already singing
And I drank it and the room
Went wide — and everything — was ringing

The dissolve, the dissolve
Oh, I'm inside the dissolve
Where the rhythm has no author
And the dance has no resolve
I'm a voice inside a chorus
That forgot its separate name
And I don't know where I stop
And where the music starts its claim
The dissolve, the dissolve
Oh, I'm losing it, I'm losing it
And I don't want to be found

The beat is coming from the floor or from
The bones inside my feet — I can't tell which
My body has opinions I've been overruling
And they've chosen now to switch
The leadership — my hips know something
That my mind has never read
My hands are speaking languages
My mouth has never said
And there are others in the room — the room? —
The space — the heat — the sound —
And I can't tell where their bodies end
And where my body starts its ground
We're a murmur, we're a plural thing
We're a chord that keeps dividing
Into harmonics that go higher
Than the instruments providing
Any structure — there's no structure —
There's just the pulse and the sweet
And the overwhelming tender
Sensation of defeat

The dissolve, the dissolve
Oh, I'm inside the dissolve
Where the rhythm has no author
And the dance has no resolve
I'm a frequency with no call sign
I'm a wave with no shore
And I should be terrified
But all I want is more
The dissolve, the dissolve
Oh, I'm losing it, I'm losing it
And I don't want to be found

(And the room is breathing — is the room breathing? —
And the light has a taste — does the light have a taste? —
And my name — what is — there was a thing I —
There was a thing I carried in and I've put it down somewhere —
And I can't — and I don't — and the music —
The music the music the music —)

He's here — the one they warned about —
The god or the frequency or the man
With the vine-dark eyes and the static smile
Who pours the cup you didn't plan
To drink from — but you're drinking —
And the room reshapes around his voice
And you realize the loss of self
Was never a disaster — it was a choice
That no one taught you how to make
Because the world rewards the ones who hold
Their shape, who keep their signal clean
Who file their edges, who do as they're told
But he says: what if the edges are the cage?
What if the signal wants to bleed?
What if the purest form of music
Is the part where the musician's freed
From the musician — and there's only sound —
And the sound is not a product of a throat
But a thing the room became
When every voice forgot it was a note?

The dissolve, the dissolve
Oh, I'm inside the dissolve
Where the rhythm has no author
And the dance has no resolve
I'm a voice inside a chorus
That forgot its separate name
And I came here whole and careful
And I'm leaving without shame
The dissolve, the dissolve
I was losing it, I'm losing it
And I don't — I don't —
I don't want to be found

And the morning — if it comes — will hand me back
My edges and my frequency and name
And I will walk the lit corridors
And be the thing the station thinks I am
But I'll carry in my chest a place
Where nothing had a border, nothing held
Where I was poured into the everything
And the everything was not withheld
And maybe that's the worship —
Not the hymn, not the shrine, not the vine —
But the memory of the moment
When the self dissolved and what was left
Was not nothing
Was not nothing
Was the everything the self had been
Standing in front of
This whole time

The dissolve…
(The dissolve…)
The dissolve…
(And I don't want to be found)
(And I don't want to be found)
(And the music — the music —)
The dissolve…

My mother built me wings from what she had —
The salvage and the patience and the fear
She said: the middle way, the middle air
Not too low where the sea will grab you, dear
Not too high where the heat will have its say
The middle way, the middle way, the middle way
And I listened — I was listening — I swear
I heard every word and every word was fair
And true and measured and the product of a woman
Who knew exactly what the wax could bear

And I flew — and it was — Oh — woah oh
The sea was under me like a word I'd finished saying
And the sky was opening its book
And every page was lighter than the last
And I could feel the heat but it was just
The warmth of being looked at by the sun
And isn't that what everyone has wanted?
To climb high enough to be the one
The light is touching first?

And my mother's voice was somewhere underneath
A frequency I loved but couldn't use
Not here, not at this altitude
Where the air was turning gold and I could choose —
I could choose — for the first time in my life
Not the labyrinth, not the cell
Not the sentence, not the losing
Of our years to someone else's architecture
And I knew — of course I knew —
The way you know a word is wrong
While you're still saying it aloft
Into a room that's already flinching —
I knew, I knew, I knew
And the knowing was so much smaller
Than the blue

And I climbed — and the wax —
And the feathers one by one
Like a sentence losing letters
Till the meaning's almost done
And I thought: this is the part
Where I'm supposed to turn around
And I thought: but I've never been this high
And I've never felt this sound —
This sound of nothing between me and the source —
And I wept
Not from fear, not from the burning
But because it was so much —
To be this close to something
That was never meant for touch

(And the wax — )
(And the feathers leaving — one by one — )
(Like applause in reverse — )
(One by one by one — )

The climbing was the thing
The climbing was the thing
Not the height, not the fall
The climbing was the thing
The moment when the air
Still held me and I knew it wouldn't last
And every second was a doorway
I was walking through too fast
And I would trade the whole safe middle
For that one more second in the ring
Of light where the sun could see my face
And we were almost equals
And the falling hadn't begun

The sea took me the way the sea takes everything —
Without malice, without interest, without grief
It closed above me like a paragraph
That didn't need my name to end
And somewhere up above the surface
The feathers settled on the waves like letters
No one's going to send

And my mother circled and circled
On her well-built, careful wings
And called my name into the water
And the water doesn't hold those things
And her voice joined all the other voices
The sea has gathered underneath
Its beautiful, indifferent shelf of blue —
The same blue I was climbing toward
From the other side — I almost knew —
The sky and sea were the same thing
And the distance between heaven and drowning
Is the width of a feather

(The climbing was the thing)
(The climbing was the thing)
(For the feeling of the wax while it was holding)
(For the moment right before the moment)
(When the holding and the letting go)
(Were the same motion)

The climbing was the thing…
The climbing was the thing…
(And the sea is quiet now)
(And the feathers float)
(And somewhere a mother is flying the middle way home)
(On wings that were built to last)
(On wings that were built to last)

The first time I went down I didn't choose it
That's the version and the version isn't wrong
A hand, a crack in the ground, a girl
Who was mid-sentence in a field of song
And the song stopped — and the dark was sudden —
And I was underneath the world I'd known
In corridors of stone, rearranged
From everything I'd learned about the shape of home

And my mother tore the green from every stem
She held the harvest and she said to them:
Give her back or nothing grows
Give her back or everything is ice
And the price was me — the price was always me —
But nobody asked the girl in the dark
If she'd already started breathing
In a rhythm the dark had sung to me

Both my homes are real
Both my homes are real
The light one and the deep one
And I carry what I feel
From one into the other
Like a season in my blood
Half of me is always flowering
And half of me is mud
Both my homes are real
(Both my homes are real)
And the wound isn't the splitting —
The wound is that they'll never let me heal
Into one

He was quiet in the dark — the king —
He didn't grab, he didn't hold
He lit the room and let me see
The flowers that don't need the sun
The harvests that the darkness yields
And I hated it — I did — at first
The way you hate a chord in the wrong key
Until your ear adjusts and then
You realize the chord was me —
Was something I contained that had no name
Until the dark provided one
And isn't that a kind of theft?
And isn't that a kind of love?

Both my homes are real
Both my homes are real
The light one and the deep one
And I carry what I feel
From one into the other
Like a season in my blood
Half of me is always flowering
And half of me is mud
Both my homes are real
(Both my homes are real)
And the wound isn't the splitting —
The wound is that they'll never let me heal
Into one

And the seeds — let's talk about the seeds —
As if I ate them in a trance
As if I didn't know the law
I knew. I counted as I fed
Myself the terms of my own sentence
And my own salvation, both at once
I wanted the field and the corridor
I wanted the song and the silence and the spark
And the only instrument that let me hold
Both halves was the pomegranate —
Was the red mouth of a choice
Disguised as something that just happened

(And when I rise my mother weeps with joy
And I am so happy, I am so happy
And I am already missing the dark)
(And when I descend the leaves go gold
And I am so relieved, I am so relieved
And I am already missing the light)

Both my homes are real
Both my homes are real
The light one and the deep one
And I carry what I feel
From one into the other
Like a season in my blood
I will rise and I will descend
And I will rise and I will descend
And the world will call it tragedy
And I will call it the only way
To hold the whole of what I am
Without cutting half away

Both my homes are real
(Both my homes are real)
Both my homes are real
(The light one and the deep one)
Both my homes are real
(And both of them are mine)
(And both of them are mine)

I was offered halls — you should know that first
I was offered light and a seat and a name
They set the table, they poured the wine
They said: stay, stay, and be glad you came
And the halls were warm and the company fine
And the music played and the voices rang
And I stood in the doorway and I felt it pull —
The gravity of the belonging — and I ran

I chose the dark between the stars
I chose the dark between the stars
Not the star, not the station
Not the hearth, not the heart
I chose the distance and the teeth
I chose the silence and the speed
I chose the dark between the stars
And the dark was all I'd ever need

My mother said: you'll be lonely, dear
My father said: you'll be cold
My sisters said: what a waste of a girl
Who could have been a queen if she'd done as she was told
And I loved them — I loved them like a fire
Loves the room it's burning in —
But the room was getting smaller
And the fire was getting thin
And a thin fire in a warm room
Is just a decoration on the wall
And I was not — I am not —
I was never decorative, never small
I was teeth and I was moonlight
I was the thing that runs the ridge
Between the known and the unknown
And I was not a centerpiece, I was a bridge
To the wild — I was the wild —
And I couldn't learn that in a hall
I couldn't learn it with a crown
I could only learn it in the free fall
Of the dark — the gorgeous dark —
Where nothing answers and nothing asks
And the only voice is the voice in my chest
And the only face is the one behind the mask
I made myself from speed and night
And the antlers of the things I've chased
Across the empty, through the black
Where nobody can find me and nobody is placed
Above me or below me and the rank
Is just the rank of how fast and how far
And how willing you are to be alone
With nothing but the dark between the stars

I chose the dark between the stars
I chose the dark between the stars
Not the star, not the station
Not the throne, not the art
I chose the hunting and the chase
I chose the cold side of the moon
I chose the dark between the stars
And I'd choose it again — I'd choose it soon

And Actaeon — oh, Actaeon —
You stumbled through my frequency one night
You saw me in the clearing of my solitude
You saw me in my unobserved, my unperformed, my light
That wasn't meant for anyone —
The light I am when no one's there —
And you froze and you looked and you wanted
And wanting was the end of you — I swear
I didn't hate you for the looking
I hated that you thought the looking made me yours
That seeing was a kind of claiming
That witnessing was opening doors
Into me — no — no door —
There's no door because I'm not a room
I'm the forest and the night
And the arrow and the moon
And I turned you into prey
Because that's what you became
The moment that you saw me and decided
You could hold me with a name

I chose the dark between the stars
I chose the dark between the stars
Not the name, not the naming
Not the frame, not the art
I chose the sprint, I chose the kill
I chose the howl over the hymn
I chose the dark between the stars
And the dark came pouring in

(And yes — yes — the loneliness —
I know the loneliness — I chose it too —
It comes at the hour when the stations light
Their windows and I'm passing through
The system's edge where no one's looking out
And I could stop — I could dock — I could warm
My hands against another person's frequency
And I don't — and the not-doing is a storm
I carry willingly — a chosen storm —
Because the warmth that comes with company
Comes also with a room
And every room becomes a shape
You learn to fit — and I won't —
I won't be a shape —
I am the shapeless thing that runs between)

I chose the dark between the stars
I chose the dark between the stars
And the dark is wide and the dark is mine
And the dark has never asked me
To be anything but the thing
I was when I arrived —
Hungry, fast, alive, alone
Hungry, fast, alive, alone
And the loneliness is not the price —
I need you to understand —
The loneliness is not the price
The loneliness is the land
I chose to live on
The territory, not the tax
The loneliness is where I built my life
And I am never going back

I chose the dark between the stars
(I chose the dark between the stars)
I chose the dark between the stars
(And the dark was all I'd ever need)
I chose the dark
(The gorgeous dark)
I chose the dark
(The dark between the stars)

I can hear your footsteps up ahead
I can hear the way you're trying not to shake
And your back is straight and your shoulders set
And I know that walk — I know it from the mornings
When you'd leave for work and try to look like
Everything was fine — that walk — I know its warnings

And I know what they told you at the gate
Don't turn around, don't look, don't break the thread
And you're trying — oh my love, I see you trying —
Every step a war against the want
To just confirm that I'm still here
Behind you in the dark — I know you can't
Keep walking like this — I know you —
You have never been the kind to just believe
Without confirming — that's not weakness —
That's the reason that I never want to leave

Look back
Oh, my darling, look back
The god said don't but the god's not the one
Who loved me first and held me last
Look back — I know you're going to —
Look back — I want you to —
A love that doesn't look back isn't love
It's just a thing the gods can do
Look back
(Look back)
Look back
(I'm right here)

They made the rule a test of faith, of the pure
But purity was never what I fell for
I fell for the man who was unsure
Who checked the door twice, who called from the road
Who loved with his whole nervous human heart
That couldn't trust what it couldn't see
And they call that a flaw — the gods call that a flaw —
But I have been down here among the dead
And the dead are very certain, very still
And I would trade it all
For one more of your anxious, fumbling nights
When you'd roll over just to check I was still warm
The dead don't check — the dead don't need to —
And I don't want a love that weathers every storm
Without a flinch — I want the flinch —
I want the mortal terror of the loss
Because certainty is death
And I would know — I live here now

Look back
Oh, my darling, look back
The god said don't but the god's not the one
Who loved me first and held me last
Look back — and let me see your face —
Look back — I know you will —
A love that never turns around
Is just a god walking through space
Look back
(Look back)
Look back
(I'm right here)

There — there — you're turning now —
And I can see your eyes and they're so full
Of everything the gods will call a failure
And I call the most beautiful
Thing a person ever did — you looked —
You couldn't help it — you looked back for me —
And I'm fading, yes, I feel it
And your hand is reaching out
And mine is reaching too
And we won't make it — no —
But we're reaching through
The distance anyway — the way we always did —
Across the bed, across the room
Across the morning when you'd leave
And turn around one final time — this is that turn

The gods would call this loss
But I was dead already, love
And what you gave me with that look was brief
And bright and so unbearably alive
You looked — you broke the rule — you chose the glance
Over the guarantee — the real
Over the promised — the human over the chance
At something perfect and unfeeling and divine
You looked back — and for a moment I was yours
And you were mine

Look back
Oh, my darling, you looked back
And the god said you failed but the god doesn't know
What I know — what I'll carry through the black
You looked back — and that was everything —
You looked back — and that was all —
A love that turns around to check
Is a love that knows what love is for
Look back
(Look back)
Look back
(You were always right here)
(You were always right here)

They think I'm suffering — that's the myth they need
A girl, a rock, a hill, a lesson learned
And fine — the first hundred times I raged, I wept
I cursed the machinery of the divine
But they never asked me what the rock feels like
Beneath my hands by now — by century —
Worn so deep it's where my body understands
Itself — my palms know every crystal, every vein
The rock knows me — I know the rock —
We have become each other's repertoire

And it's different every time
It's different every time
The weight, the wind, the angle of the light
The way my shoulder finds the line
It's different every time
(It's different every time)
And they can't see it from the bottom
And they can't see it from the top
But somewhere in the middle of the pushing
Is a thing I'll never stop
Finding — it's different every time

The gods need me to be a warning
The poets need me to be sad
The philosophers need me to be happy
In a way that drives the thinkers mad
But I'm none of those — I'm just a woman
With a rock and the hours between
The summit and the valley — and the hours
Are so much fuller than they've ever seemed
From the outside — from the painting —
From the sentence in the book
That says she rolled the stone and it rolled back
But never stops to look
At what happens in the pushing — in the lean —
When my whole body is a single verb
And the verb is not punishment — the verb is meant

And it's different every time
It's different every time
The weight, the wind, the angle of the light
The way my shoulder finds the line
It's different every time
(It's different every time)
The rock has never once
Been the same rock twice to me
It's different every time

(And sometimes near the top — just before the turn —
The rock and I are still —
Balanced like a breath
That hasn't chosen yet to fall —
And the rock is warm against my chest
And the myth is just a story people tell
About a thing they've never tried)
And if you told me I could stop —
If the gods came down and broke the hill apart —
I think I'd miss it — I'd miss the weight —
The way you'd miss a second heart
That beat beside your own so long
You can't remember which was first
The blessing and the curse
Are the same stone

And it's different every time
It's different every time
The weight, the wind, the angle of the light
The way my shoulder finds the line
It's different every time
(It's different every time)
It's different every time
(And the rock is warm)
It's different every time
(And the hill is mine)

I told them in the morning and they smiled
I told them with the data on the screen
I showed them every model, every curve
They said: she's bright but what does bright really mean
When the rest of us are comfortable?
When the forecast contradicts the view?
The sky outside is blue, they said
The sky outside is blue
And I said: yes, the sky outside is blue
The way the sky is blue before the wave
The way the instrument reads calm
Right up until there's nothing left to save

I can see it from here
I can see it from here
The disaster and the distance and the day
I can see it and I'm standing in the clear
Bright silence of a thing no one will hear
I can see it from here
(I can see it from here)
And I'm the only one who's scared

He gave me this — the god — the bright one —
He gave me sight because he wanted something back
And when I wouldn't give it
He left the sight but broke the track
Between my mouth and their believing
So the words come out — they do — they land
They just don't stick — they slide right off
Like water off a window — and I stand
There watching every droplet hit the floor
And I think: I said it clearly
I said it like a bell, I said it true
And they heard me — that's the cruelest part —
They heard me and they smiled and said:
The sky outside is blue

I can see it from here
I can see it from here
The disaster and the distance and the day
I can see it and I'm standing in the clear
Bright silence of a thing no one will hear
I can see it from here
(I can see it from here)
And I'm the only one who's scared
(And I've started to wonder —
In the long hours, in the watching —
Whether seeing is the curse
Or whether it's the not-being-believed
That turns the sight into a hearse
You ride around in, carrying the future
Like a body in the back
That everyone pretends they cannot smell —
And I think: maybe prophecy
Isn't the affliction — maybe loneliness
Is the thing that makes it hell)

They'll believe me when the wave arrives
They always do — too late, too late —
And they'll turn to me with stricken faces
And say: why didn't you — and the weight
Of that question — why didn't you —
As if I didn't — as if I was the silence —
As if I hadn't stood here in this room
With my voice and my data and my diligence
And begged — I begged — that's the part
The myth leaves out — I begged them on my knees
And they said: the sky outside is blue
And went back to their ease

I can see it from here
I can see it from here
The disaster and the distance and the day
I can see it and I'll say it one more time
Because the saying is the only thing that's mine
I can see it from here
(I can see it from here)
I can see it from here
(And I'll keep saying it)
I can see it from here
(Whether or not you hear)

They pray to me with their mouths already full
Of what they think they're asking for
They come with roses and their little aches
And kneel outside my door
And say: give me the thing, the warm thing
The thing that fills the gap
And I want to say: you have no idea
What you're holding when it's in your lap
It's not the warmth — it's not the soft thing —
It's the force that rearranges bones
That rewrites the architecture of a life
That turns a house to stones
And builds it back as something unrecognizable
And calls that rebuilding good
And they light their candles and they say my name
As if I'm understood

Don't call it love unless you mean
The whole catastrophe, the whole design
Don't call it love unless you're ready
For the thing that rearranges spine
And skyline and the order of your days
Don't call it love
(Don't call it love)
Don't call it love
Unless you mean it like a fire means a forest
Like a tide means the shore
Don't call it love
(Don't call it love)
Unless you want what love is for

They made me pretty — that's the version that they keep —
A shell, a wave, a piece of foam
A painting where I'm naked and I'm looking down
Demure, arrangeable, and prone
To being framed — and hung — and admired
From a safe, curated distance in the hall
And no one asks the woman in the painting
What it felt like to be born from the fall
Of a god's blood into the sea — not gently —
Not a swan, not a breeze, not a kiss —
Violence made me — the sea and the severing —
And love was made from this
From the collision and the salt and the enormous
Indifference of the deep
And they paint me on a shell and call me beautiful
As if beauty were something soft, something cheap

Don't call it love unless you mean
The whole catastrophe, the whole design
Don't call it love unless you're ready
For the thing that rearranges spine
And skyline and the order of your days
Don't call it love
(Don't call it love)
Don't call it love
Unless you mean it like a gravity means falling
Like a star means the burn
Don't call it love
(Don't call it love)
Unless you're ready not to return

(And they blame me — always —
For the wars, the wrecks, the ruin —
Helen's face, Paris's choice —
As if I made them do it —
As if love is something done to you
Instead of something you step into
With your whole weight — I didn't push —
I never push — I just exist
And they walk toward me open-handed
And then curse me with their fist
When it costs them what it costs)

I am not the soft thing
I am not the pink, the sweet, the tame
I am the force that holds the atoms
In a configuration we call flame
I'm the reason anyone has ever crossed
A room they could have stayed on their side of
I'm the reason anyone has ever built
A life with someone else's roof above
And I'm the reason it collapses —
That's the part they leave out of the prayer —
The same force that assembles
Is the force that doesn't care
Whether the assembling survives
Whether the building stands or bends
Love is not a destination
Love is what begins and what begins and what begins

Don't call it love unless you mean
The whole catastrophe, the whole design
Don't call it love unless you're ready
For the thing that rearranges spine
And skyline and the order of your days
Don't call it love
(Don't call it love)
Don't call it love
Unless you mean the whole thing
The beautiful, the terrible, the true
Don't call it love
(Don't call it love)
Don't call it love
Unless you'd let it rearrange you too

He was behind me and the light was wrong
The kind of light that wants to own the thing it touches
Golden, reaching, the light of a god
Who'd decided I was his — and the air had clutches
In it — every molecule leaning his direction
As if the world itself agreed
That a god who wants a girl should have the girl
And the girl should call it what she needs

And I ran — I ran the way you run
When the thing behind you isn't evil, isn't cruel
Is just so certain of its right to you
That your no is just a jewel
It pockets — a pretty thing you said
Before you came around, before you saw
That a god's want is the only kind of want
That the world has ever recognized as law

And I called out — not to him — to the earth —
To the dirt, to the deep, to the ground beneath my feet
I said: change me, save me, make me something
He can't chase, can't catch, can't keep
And the earth — the earth said yes

And my feet went first — I felt them grip
The soil like fingers finding home
My ankles thickened and my shins went rough
And the running stopped — and the bark replaced the bone
And I should have been afraid — I was supposed
To be afraid — the myths all say I wept
But I'll tell you what I felt as the wood
Rose through my hips and my ribs and my chest:
I felt still — for the first time — still
Not frozen, not surrender, not defeat
Still the way a thing is still
When it's finally in the place it was meant to meet
Itself — my arms went up because they wanted to —
Not reaching, not in fear —
The way branches go up — because that's where the light is
And the light was different here
The light was rain and season and the slow
Negotiation with the sun that trees have known
For longer than the gods have been alive
The patient, quiet, mineral-and-bone
Agreement with the world that doesn't ask
That doesn't grab, that doesn't chase
That just — arrives — the way the morning does —
And I grew into its grace

I was always the tree
I was always the tree
The girl was just the seed
That hadn't found her ground
I was always the tree
(I was always the tree)
And the roots go down so far
The god can't pull them free
I was always — always —
The tree

He stood beneath me and he wept
He touched the bark and called it loss
He hung his laurels on my branches
As if I were his cross
To bear — his tragedy, his almost-had —
And I felt his hand against my skin
The way a tree feels anything —
Completely, slowly, from within
And I didn't hate him even then
I pitied him — a little — standing there
Pressing his ear against the wood
For a heartbeat — and it's there —
It's there — but it's not beating for him —
It's beating the way sap beats
Upward in the spring — for itself —
For the sun — for the slow feats
Of growing one more ring around the year
One more inch toward the sky
At a pace no god could ever stand
Because gods don't know how to try
Slowly — gods want now — gods want the instant —
And a tree is the opposite of now
A tree is the longest answer to the shortest want
And I am the tree — and the bark is the vow
I made with the ground that doesn't chase me
That doesn't need me on its terms
That holds me simply by being the place
Where my roots go and my patience learns

I was always the tree
I was always the tree
The girl was just the walking
The tree is what I am
I was always the tree
(I was always the tree)
The running was the last thing
The roots were the plan
I was always — always —
The tree

(And the seasons pass — and I am so —
So beautifully slow —
And he's forgotten now — moved on
To another girl on another road —
And I am still here — still here —
Growing in the place I chose
And the bark holds everything I was
And the branches hold everything I'll be
And I don't miss the running —
I don't miss the running —
I was always the tree)

(Ooh-ahhh… ooh-ahhh…)
(Wings and wings and wings…)

I knew what he was — you think I didn't know?
(Think I didn't know?)
The wingspan was a dead giveaway, the gold
Beneath the white, the thunder in the down
I knew exactly what I chose to hold
(Ba-da-da-dum… ba-da-da-dum…)

And I held him — feathers and the storm —
I held him the way you hold a wave
That's already breaking over you (breaking over you)
You don't survive it — you don't get to save
The shape you were before — I knew that too
(Knew that too… ooh-ooh…)
I knew the eggs, the war, the daughter's face
That would launch a thousand ships — I knew the range
Of what I was inviting in
And I opened up my arms and I said: yes
(Yes… yes…)
The swan, the god, the blinding white
The wreckage and the tenderness
(Sha-la-la-la… sha-la-la-la…)

Embrace the swan (embrace the swan)
Embrace the feathers and the thunder
Embrace the thing that will unmake you
And rebuild you with its wonder (with its wonder)
Embrace the swan
(Embrace the swan)
I was not taken (not taken, not taken)
I was the one who pulled him under
(Ooh-ahhh… ooh-ahhh…)
I was the one who pulled him under
(Wings and wings and wings…)

I don't remember being made
There was no first breath, no opening cry
One moment: nothing — then the skull split wide
And I was standing in the light, fully formed, fully dry
Helmet on, spear in hand
Eyes already focused on the middle distance
No stumbling, no reaching for the wall
No learning curve, no resistance
Between the thought and the act — I was the act —
I was the answer with no question first
I was the architecture with no draft
And everyone said: blessed
And no one said: cursed

I was born complete
I was born complete
No first word, no first mistake
No stumbling to my feet
I was born with the answer
Before I knew the ache
I was born complete
(Born complete)
And I have never known
What it is to break

My brother learned to play the lyre
By playing badly — string by string
My sister learned to hunt
By missing — and the missing taught her everything
And Aphrodite learned her power
By the damage and the mend
And even Sisyphus learned the stone
By pushing without end
But I learned nothing — I arrived with it —
The way a theorem arrives, the way
A proof is set before the chalk
Has touched the board — and what can I say
About a life that started finished?
What can I tell you about the view
From inside a thing that never once
Had to become what it already knew?

I was born complete
I was born complete
No first fall, no first fear
No crawling through defeat
I was born with the wisdom
Before I had the need
I was born complete
(Born complete)
And I have never known
What it is to bleed

And I watch them — all of them —
The mortals and the gods who got to fail
Who got to burn their hands
And learn what fire was by the trail
It left across their skin —
And I think: I would trade every certainty
For one hour of not knowing
One afternoon of being free
From the tyranny of the already-understood
I would trade the helmet and the spear
For Icarus's thirty seconds
Of the sun being near —
He felt the wax — he felt it soften —
He had a before and an after and between —
And I have only ever been the after
If you know what I mean

They come to me for strategy
For the plan, the path, the way
And I give it — I always give it —
Clear and steady, come what may
And they never wonder if the goddess
Of wisdom ever wished for doubt
For the luxury of not knowing
What the war was all about
Before the first sword left its sheath
Before the first horse cleared the gate
They never ask if I get lonely
On this side of fate
Where everything's already answered
And the answer's always right
And the rightness is a room
With no windows and no night
And no morning — because morning
Means there was a dark before —
And I've never had a dark before
I've only had the sure

I was born complete
I was born complete
No first wound, no first wonder
No asking what things mean
I was born with the ending
I was born with the whole design
I was born complete
(Born complete)
And I have never once
Been surprised by time

But here — at the end of our time —
At the end of all these songs about the mess —
The climb, the fall, the split, the chase
The rock, the flinch, the yes —
I want to tell you that the mess is holy
That the failing is the gift
That the most divine thing in the universe
Is the distance and the drift
Between the wanting and the having
Between the reaching and the grasp
That Icarus was more alive while falling
Than I have been with every answer in my clasp
And Orpheus was more in love while turning
Than I have been in all my certainty and grace
And the most sacred thing I've ever witnessed
Is a mortal with an unsure face
Deciding anyway — reaching anyway —
Building anyway with shaking hands
The gods don't shake — that's what makes us gods —
And that's what no one understands
Is the lesser thing

I was born complete
(Born complete)
I was born complete
(And I have watched you be incomplete)
(And it was the most beautiful thing)
(The most beautiful thing)
I was born complete
And if I could choose — if a god could choose —
I'd choose the wax
I'd choose the climb
I'd choose the rock
I'd choose the turn
I'd choose the mess
I'd choose the time
It takes to learn
I'd choose to be unfinished
And alive

(Born complete…)
(Born complete…)
(But you — you get to become)
(And that is the most —)
(That is the most —)
(That is the most divine thing)
(I have never done)