i think of you and it's all right;

[wingborne]

All countries carry a secret inside them.

--

England once asked if America ever wanted to be human.

America said he was already human because he was a country so it didn’t make sense.

England said no, that wasn’t what he was asking.

America said he didn’t get it.

England said it didn’t matter.

--

There is a room in England’s house.

It only has a small chest on the floor. A key is stuck in the lock and it seems like Spanish galleons or rubies or diamonds lurked inside.

But it’s not.

Faded imperialism had been neatly creased into the corners, small clothes for children, nightgowns to pajamas, suits to sarees, white to red to brown to gold to the deep ocean blue. There were ribbons for the girls and hard candy for the boys. There were storybooks and little toys for them. There were empty journals and hard nubs of pencils. There were pictures, crudely drawn, falling apart at the edges, a child’s scrawl at the corner of them.

Sometimes England sits in the room and stares into the chest.

He stares, but does not touch.

--

The shop must think itself terribly clever, he thought.

It’s all economics. A sale, everything must go, buy buy buy. Everything is economy nowadays, and there is a creeping, cold sensation in his stomach. There is money in his pocket and it’s a good deal and he presses his fingertips against the pane of the glass and it’s cold.

His breath chokes him with need, and he hates shopping. But the bells jangle when he opens the shop door.

Baby shoes, nearly a pound, will sit on his bedside.

--

He walked to town and they asked if America was his son.

He said no.

He said this was his brother.

He said he was all the daughters of his father's house and all the sisters too.

He said no.

--

America once asked if England wanted a son.

England said he had sons.

America said who.

England said he had his boys who fought for him in the wars, even when the colour photographs could hardly capture the brightness of their blood. He said he had his boys who fought for him and he said he had his girls who shape him, he said he had the children who laugh, he said he had little girls walking down the street mouthing for king and country for king and country he said little boys said dieu et mon droit he said he had so many children and they all lived and breathed and he could feel them, everyday, in his ribcage, his beating heart proclaiming with every step that he was alive and they were alive.

America said no, he meant his own human son.

England said




--

A story.

One day, a lord’s daughter sat in the meadow. She saw a white stag in the forest. With her lady-in-waiting, she crept close to the underbrush, but the white stag was gone. In his place, there was a man with a slim and narrow face, dressed in the finest cloth, a trimmed cape clasped with an insignia of a long-forgotten house.

Her heart ached with longing.

They met everyday and talked for hours, and he would take her hand and show her the darkness of the forest, pulling her through the thicket of trees, emerging past the glittering lakes, hands flitting across her waist as she stood atop the crags.

Sometimes they kissed and rolled together in the forest, and her long red hair would grow entangled in his fingers and his legs with hers, and he tasted sweet and whole. She told him that she thought his laugh sounded like the gaiety of children playing before dawn, the bellows of men filled with ale, the merry chuckles of women as they worked. He said her laugh was beautiful.

Her belly swelled, and she visited the forest less and less, for though her heart was full, her ankles grew weak for her weight. But he was always there, half-hidden in the trees, emerging from the branches to pull her and kiss her. Sometimes he would kneel and press his hands and ear against her belly, and murmur a lullaby of trickling rivers. She preferred his kisses, though, and he could never deny her. Sometimes he would hold her hands and talk quickly about white cottages and silver rivers and dewy meadows and a warm hearth and red roses crawling on trellises. In return, she would say nothing, only touching the full of his lips.

The man disguised himself under a dark heavy cloak, and so stood in her chambers when the midwife hustled inside the room, boiling hot water ready. Her face shiny with sweat, she could only smile at him and say soon, soon.

His heart beats in his throat.

He knew lives were short, but he had forgotten how short, when the babe came into the world without breath, and the lord’s daughter slumbered without breath, blood pooling and dripping from the sheets of the bed. He held her cold, white hand that was still immersed in the green of her sleeves, for he had told her once that he liked the colour.

He learns that his seed turns into blood and he chokes a woman’s white throat with his love and turns her womb into a bloody mangled rose to drip onto the white of the bed.

He learns the terrible secret of countries.

He learns he can never have a child.



This is a story.