i.
⠀
“Mother, oh Mother,
Why don’t you love me?”
Pansy pleads with the sky.
⠀
“Mother, oh Mother,
How come you wound me?”
Pansy cannot help but cry.
“Daughter, Dishonour, Disgrace,
You have no magic at all,”
Her mother angrily scolds.
⠀
“Daughter, Dishonour, Disgrace,
You will bring shame on us all,”
Her mother already mourns.
⠀
ii.
⠀
“Brother, brother,
Why won’t you ever
Play with me?”
“Sister, sister,
You’re defective,
Why can’t you see?”
“My brother, my dearest Basil —
Just lend me another year!
I beg you, tell Mother to love me —
I know that my magic is near!”
“My sister, my dearest Pansy —
Mother has made it clear.
Nine and no sign of magic —
You’re the one to fear.”
⠀
iii.
⠀
Afraid of becoming an outcast,
Scared of shaming a sacred name,
Pansy descends from Morgana
And sets the curtains aflame.
⠀
The night has fallen upon them,
Yet the fire within Pansy is bright.
She falls asleep thinking, believing,
“I’ve finally done something right.”
⠀
Nine treacherous years of longing,
A decade spent begging for scraps;
A war-torn eternity later —
“I never did win Mother’s love.”
⠀⠀
iv.
⠀
The Fight is a losing Battle —
Their Castle has crumbled, at last;
The Victory — a prison-life sentence
That Pansy cannot quite get past.
⠀
The ruins in rural Scotland,
Enclosed by fields and lost sheep,
Sustain a band of lost students,
Shield sanity they’ve managed to keep.
⠀
Haunted by horrors of torture,
Complicit in terrors of War,
They each find a way of scorching
Their long list of sins from before.
⠀
There’s fire at the back of one’s throat
Or escaping to streets of Milan;
But the fool’s act of dying in Battle
Tastes like bittersweet ashes of rum.
⠀
The glittering rubies of potions
Are Pansy’s torture of choice;
Its contents contain one sole purpose —
To quieten her mother’s voice.
⠀
v.
⠀
Conditional, finite, and reckless —
The nature of Mother’s love —
Has Pansy growing senseless,
“Have I not given enough?”
⠀
The only peace she can handle —
One that was built to destroy;
Icàrus infuses illusions —
A murderer smiling with joy.
⠀
“What does Icàrus feel like?”
The question is quietly hummed.
Pansy is broken, defenseless;
“Worthy of being loved.”