the shade of his silk wings, the feathers dribbling off his bone like wax falling from a candle, was fleeting and a slave to the whispering wind that gently fingered the edges of those serrated feathers. angels are good guardians and that summer i didn't get a single sunburn even though i'm susceptible and my tears never went unnoticed.

---

i met him, flirting with the shoreline and riding palms of surf, hiding in the foam of the sea. he smiled at me from afar and waved and i didn't notice until he whispered my name. his voice dripped of salt and a finger of his breath tickled my nose and it smelled like honey and more salt.

his wings were buzzing with life and i didn't know if they were wax or real. beneath my fingertips they felt like rose petals.

he smiled and wrapped his thin arms around me, branded with lean muscle, and whispered into my ear. "you're safe now."

his words stuck to the hollows of my bones and i kept them there that whole summer until they evaporated away into the sky to make the contours of clouds and then come crashing down as those perfect crystalline drops of rain.

he found me on the beach, running from fishermen's nets and their evil fish-hooks. there was a scar across his chest that reeeee-ached to the bottom of his ribs and raaaa-ced all the way back to a shoulder. he said it was from a harpoon.

seashells and barnacles clung to his hair -- bleached a yellow-white from the sun. his skin had been warmed over - a light splatter of sprinkled cinnamon - and the tan was uneven thanks to the churning of ocean waves, which had crashed upon the flat prairieland of his body and chiseled out his muscles.

he said his wings were a collection of fish-scales and just the sea. he said he was the sea and he was the sky and the wind and the fish and the reason for harpoonists and giant squids. once, he said, he had dined with the kraken, and he had watched mermaids crash into rocks and bleed on the shore, crying out for a prince to save them.

i had been on the shore, dress raised about my ankles as the water slapped my feet playfully. a balmy wind chapped the side of my face and i had cast my eyes out to the water longingly and then he had appeared in all his glory. naked and pristine and so clean. and his scent might have been intoxicating but i was blinded by the quicksilver beauty of his voice that pooled in the tidal pools of my ears and made my heart stutter-stutter-stop and i gasped and he was there to press around me.

"you're safe now." and his wings fluttered like my eyelids and i fell into his arms, my head buried in his chest, and he sang me a pretty song that reminded me of yarn and seashells and the sound of the sea.

---

there were translucent webs between his imploring fingers, long and slender and curious as they crawled across my shale skin and i watched on with languid eyes, my eyelids droopy and content. his angelsoft eyelashes fluttered on my sternum and the smack of a sweet kiss tingled lingeringly at the base of my ribs. his hands felt slimy yet comfortable as they entwined themselves with mine - my arms raised over my head and my body lengthened so his lips could explore every grimey inch and i felt unworthy of the presence of his silky rosemary lips.

he smiled and promises bubbled in his bright blue eyes and my mouth tugged into a tight line as i melted against his touch. there was nothing to worry about so long as the silk of his flesh was breathing against my own and we were sharing body heat and taking up space together as the sun dipped low in the horizon and stained the waters a navy blue-black, like a fresh bruise inking across a sweet face.

the crickets hummed but that was drowned out by the lovely, delicate sound that warbled from his throat like a nightengale and caused his adam's apple to bob up and down so seductively, like the call of a dancing snake.

the stars twinkled along merrily to his song, the conductors to his symphony, and i'd like to think that he weaved those bright little fish scales into the fish-net sky, black and sticky and not half as beautiful as he was.

---

one day he turned into the sand and slipped through my fingers with the lightest of twinkling sighs. frowning, i asked with a croak in my voice if that's how he would leave me when our time had expired - like the sun at the end of the longest day, its warmth fading in favor of the tranquil moon, that plays on his ocean like a harpist to her gentle instrument, tugging strings that caused velvet wrinkles to form and fold like inchworms in the sea.

he smiled at my naivety and said no, this was different, and warmed my feet while the sun burst open and licked my cheek with its syrupy warmth. the sound of salt breathed in my ear and i nodded sagely.

of course not.

the waves hissed against shore and he slipped back into them only momentarily and his clear voice rang like outwards - a bell over the brittle crash of ocean. "this is."

he came back to me that day - a matter of painstaking seconds - but we both knew that the next escape would be a permanent one, and i collapsed to cry and his arms snaked around me protectively, his brine wings shedding wax-feather tears as they huddled over me, and i was engulfed by his thick scent. his lips worked against my neck and his words funneled into my ears and i knew that the echo of his voice would always be there for comfort, even when he was gone.

and i knew that that wasn't enough.

---