A flurry of wings, fierce and fast,
A torrent of feathers, razor sharp
Two bronze talons, enormous and tight,
And I am gone. Gone
From the Dardanian shore of my father.

Did I not crave a throne like my brothers?
Why be born into a family of kings, only to toil
Away as a bearer of cups for others?
Their robes trail with ambrosia, and nectar
Fills my nostrils constantly.
I avoid their gaze, but find myself stealing
Glances as my mortal side crumbles.

True, he gave me a deathless life,
And chose me for his couch among all others.
Yet I have heard the tales: countless
Faceless women.
Swooping in under another’s form,
He leaves a child after taking what he seeks.
But what has he left me? A task and a fate.

I’ll feel no tender embrace of dying flesh,
No silk kiss from lips cracked with age,
Never will I be filled with anything less than a god.

There is something to be said for loving
In spite of death, not around it.

We shall remain here for eternity, neither
Progressing nor drawing back. My emotions
Stalled while my pleasure rages nightly.
What does it cost to love a mortal, you ask,
One running endlessly out of time?

I cannot say. But to be loved by a god, well,
The shadow never moves, neither from the marker
Nor from my heart.