previous part: https://jordynsaelor.com/2025/09/11/to-break-a-curse/
all parts: https://jordynsaelor.com/cant-catch-me-now/
***
I am grateful
for Simone
burning my hair off
so it didn’t
end up as stone,
I am grateful
for my sea god genes
so only my head grows hair
unlike these rats and many demons
who grow it everywhere,
I am grateful
for fleshy blankets
who can speak magic spells
even if I resent them
for apparently not
“having the strength”
to incapacitate the rats
without me.
I am grateful
for my good ideas
that lead to ungrateful
screaming stone rats
with wriggling tails
to build stairs out of,
I am grateful
for doors, high up on walls
so nobody thinks to lock them,
I am grateful
for cool drafts
and a golden glimpse of sun
and the rustle of leaves–
I carried the blankets
outside
as a thank you
for uncursing the rats
and making a distraction
for my rune drawing
but then
I said,
“I’m not being codependent with you
anymore,
I’m leaving you
at the first city or settlement or town,
and I better not see you sticking around
cuz I’m leaving behind demonkind.”
And the blankets laughed
and asked
if I’d taken a look about.
So I peered closer at the dust
and the trees
and the pale sky
and the closed door
flickering in and out behind us
on a brass dome
and said,
“Yes, I’ve taken a look or two about.
Are the trees
not supposed to be brown? Their leaves citrine?
Should the packed dust look more bone dry?
Are clouds missing from the sky?”
And it said
I see no settlement.
(I don’t either, not yet, I said.)
Well, you’ll need me
for shade
so you don’t
dehydrate.
We’ve got a good relationship going,
you walk,
I provide cover;
I uncurse the rats
while you write runes–
neither of us
would’ve made it here
without the other,
I think we need each other still
so we don’t die in the middle of nowhere.
And we don’t know what land this is,
it could have evil dragons
who’d like to eat us,
or sadistic demons
eager to torture us–
let’s just go
away from here
for now.”
And I admittedly got lost
in everything it was saying
but dragons eating us sounded bad
and it didn’t change my plan to still
leave them at the first settlement
so I just hoisted all three of them
on top of my head
and we walked
over the parched ground
under the cool sun.
***
find Graveyard of Lullabies here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/graveyard-of-lullabies-jordyn-saelor/1146243831?ean=9798227738936
Also I’m posting Landscape of a Heart to Archive of Our Own:) https://archiveofourown.org/works/66263881/chapters/170831440
Jordyn Saelor 