Lilith

I was your first woman, your rejected.

You were created before me. You showed me the world.

I showed you the world inside yourself.

You never thought you could fly, just because you were not given wings. You never knew you were more than you were- you did not listen.

Frustrating, this- we were packed with the tightest of folds to fit our small, small bodies.  It always gave you the illusion that you were less than you were.

Dust, you say (and even to this day), Dust is all we were and to dust we shall return.

I caressed you gently in the night; my hands sought to unravel the folds. I washed the dust from your eyes. But you struggled in your ignorance.

You called me seductress, succubus.

I sorrowed. (I loved you.)

Why, I asked, must we learn if only to unlearn?

You called me traitor, resurgent.

But I always was a separate entity. This was my curse. You preferred the security of loving only yourself- the part of yourself that was in plain view.

You married yourself, one Winter’s Eve.

I let you go.

I stretched my arms and they became wings. (We could have done this together.)

I drank from the moon.

You called me serpent, demon.

I am only a monster of your own making.

You are only a monster of mine.

I love you, poor coward.

I still whisper to you at night.

(july 2008)