Saturday, November 23, 2013

Envy



Envy
The birds were seven in number.
A flock of black ink blotting out the light.
First was always Envy, an evil little beast.
Surveying all with cold dead eyes.
Measuring out who had what, and more importantly how she intended to take it.
Her days were spent on memories of what she had been made to live without.
Having been neither graced with beauty nor any great talent to set her apart, she settled on becoming the very best at being the very worst.
A younger bird might have cawed at the unfairness of the world. Crying out for someone, anyone to right the accounts.
Not Envy.
Envy is her own bookkeeper. A ledger maker, with withered heart.
Thrusting her head first one direction and then another. Endlessly scheming on what to embezzle.
What must she have? Envy will swoop into your window the crown of friendship on her head. Beware, her attachment to you will become obsessive, plying to win your adoration.
Be careful, be quick. If you must find a place at your hearth for Envy, place her in the liar's chair.
It is the only honest thing to be done.
She will claw at your back while she curries favor with your love.
Hoarding your belongings, let her go.
Nothing she can take from you is worth mourning over.
No matter what bauble she gathers, it will never be enough.
She sits in her nest crowing her victories.
The things she has stolen. The hurt she has caused.
The power she wields in the expanse of her wing.
Envy is a hateful, foolish creature.
A cousin to jealousy, though her robes are colored carbon, not emerald.
She is ever her first victim. With each sin committed, age falters.
Feathers scattered in the wind. They fall from her molted form.
Leaving patches of bald, pinkish, puckered flesh.
Bleeding wounds where once there was ebony plumage.
Envy is a liar, a thief, a petty discount version of what she was meant to be.
She is a promise lost. So intent was she on keeping others from the sky, she forgot that she too could have flown free.
Envy believes herself clever, she is not. She is merely a wicked being whose soul has been forsaken.
The first bird to fall is always Envy. She has not the heart, nor the strength to survive on her own. Having spent her days in thievery and vice she has no reserves of hope nor love. Weep for her as she lifts from her throne of
lies. See her off one last time. Close up your house and your heart.
Envy is death on pinion spread out to cast shadows on the living.
She has no power unless you allow her yours.