***
You don’t need
an astral plane,
Sliptide said,
eating her fish.
You need
to recover
from whatever
you did and saw
on that stone mesa.
And I said,
I spent seventy years
learning what took most demons and dragons
half that time to master
so I could graduate as a witch,
and not once
did I take a class
about how to teach
someone else magic
but the first thing I did
after leaving
was teach a child
who learned twice as fast
as a speed demon,
then
years later
I taught someone else
to kill her
because I couldn’t.
Then
I taught someone else
to end a war
started by her kid.
Then
I helped lead another group
to end that war.
Then
I asked you.
Sliptide laughed,
handed me some raw meat
to cook
on the little fire I was building
out of pine needles
and sticks,
and she said
don’t worry about me
starting a war
that you have to train somebody
to end.
But I shook my head–
I’m not worried about you
making war
or turning into a tyrant–
my hands stuck
meat cubes
on a stick
and stuck
meat cubes
into the fire–
I’m worried about me.
Jordyn Saelor 