Caïn

From glass thick enough to prevent my escape but clear enough to let me see through, I watch you every day. How you flit about so freely, your wings flashing between bars of pure silver. Singing songs that make lovers smile knowingly and children dance; filling the air with hope so thick it chokes those devil enough to breathe deeply. From behind my glass I thought I would be safe from you; your wicked charms and spells at the least. I was so terribly wrong, for even now I trace your shape; the patterns of your wings into the damning glass. I hum your perfect melodies to myself, and dream of your face. You are haunting me, but I am not afraid.

I could not approach you. No one could. That is why I live behind glass, and you behind bars. Others could only stare at us. At me with disgust, and you with love and admiration. Even lust. And though I hate to admit it, I would see the same with them—those that jeer at me and praise you—for such a delicate creature I have never known before.

I am so near to you, you sometimes reflect on my glass, and I watch as five images dance across my eyes, surrounding me; transfixing me. You are near enough to touch, it seems, but always my hand hits cold and unforgiving glass. If such beauty like yours were everywhere, the destruction of all man would inevitably follow, for you are cunning and sly like the fox, who is also admired for his charm.

What would they do to me if they knew such thoughts? I would be killed, and you repelled, if not instantly ill if you saw what a monster I am. What monstrous thoughts I think! Only a beast could love what he cannot have, though youths and old men alike still harbor passion for you, and you belong to no one but the collective world itself. You still do not know my name, my hideous face, or my wretched thoughts. But I know yours, the sweetest name that could be given, and surely only innocence exists in that head of pure radiance.

Your skin is fair like mine, your face still youthful and the expression so carefree as you sing lullabies to every age. But your hair is dark like a raven's, your eyes an electric blue that, like lightning, stuns and captivates all that it beholds. Your lips are full, your cheeks are flushed with happiness. How I envy you; how I love you; how I could never have you. You are too perfect in this world made for mundane men—perhaps this is why you exist freely behind your bars, and I trapped in this glass where people cannot hear my wretched voice, only point and laugh at that which they see therein; what lies beneath the surface of my glass, but never the surface of my skin.

But to be like them, I would not be happy. For I hear what they say of me, I see the hatred in their eyes, their faces, and their very hearts. To be like them, perhaps, I would be the worst of monsters. A common one; a common man.

No, no! There I go with my horrible thoughts. It is wrong. I am wrong. To be them would be happiness, for I could gaze upon you freely and you would not turn away from me, spit on me, jeer or jab at me. You could even love me, for surely men are your desire. From the ways you tease and sing so lovingly to them, flashing your peacock's tail and drawing even forbidden eyes to you, it is clear that you love them as much as they (and I) love you.

How can I go on this way! They will only hate me more if they figure out these wretched thoughts of mine! I know better, I do, than to harbor away such feelings from the world, where I should have none; deserve none and want for none. But there is no hope, alas! No cure for the sickness of the heart called love. I read books; many I can recall completely, of lust and dignity. Men, common men, were torn to pieces by emotion. Usurped by their hearts and, inevitably, dying because of the foolish whims they followed. The common men of our age are too smart for this, of course: picking their choice of wife or husband from the shallow pool of mediocrity we all seem to spawn from, so that they will be equally disappointed and not have to fear jealousy of one another.

Except for you, who is so special, and so pure, and so free of these worries.

They all look the same to me, but what do I know of normalcy? I am a monster. Hideous, ugly, unwanted. Curse the wretched roots that gave me this garish visage! Curse my blood, for surely it is tainted as well! And damned be my body, for betraying me further and casting me closer to the Hell from which I was spawned, for thinking such thoughts of love and passion for you. Curse me, for I am no more worthy of you than a mere man is to stand before the heels of God and be judged.

But I wonder why I am wrong. Why am I so different from the common men? I have two hands, two feet as them. I walk as them, talk as them, but they fear my mind. Would you look upon me and judge me the same within your own eyes? It is assuredly my cursed appearance, and my ghastly intelligence, that cast me from the mundane and into the wretched. Are these my fault alone? Do I so deserve the punishments I receive? I did not create myself, of that I am sure, but sometimes I allow myself to think these piteous thoughts, and wonder why I must be treated different from man if I act just as he does.

And you. You are the same and yet different; as I am. This must be why you must not walk upon them; you are a seductress, or worse, sent here to guide man to his destruction. But you are so fair, and so gentle. Perhaps this is why, and you are an Angel, for that makes far more sense. Any man that saw you would want to ravish you, which would so boldly go against our fragile society. The sin of flesh is one not to be talked about, though you spill desire into the heart so fully that it overflows and pounds its way through my body like a beating drum. You are clearly a danger, but no one should hide your beauty, for that would be unfair. So your bars exist, marking you as untouchable, as my glass exists to keep me separate from the common men. To spare them from the hideousness of my being.

The crowd disperses, and we are left alone. They are less interested in me today, for I have spent so much time with my hands pressed against this glass, watching you please the world from your cage. You sit within your cage, your wings fluttering and revealing your bare, perfect back. I traced those lines as I had done a thousand times before, murmuring the words of foolish men in love; foolish men who always died in those stories from infatuation. But I knew better. For I would tear those wings from you, and love you more than any man or God or Devil has known.