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// (Her Faithful Student) 
// Story: Atychiphobia 
// by Ice Star 
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three words to describe
unicorns across generations
a faded quilt of faces
that You sewed me into 

Her faithful student

we were all Your faithful students
that title became the bookends of all of our lives
it was paraded before our names were spoken
and those three words 
were the preamble to all our epitaphs 
because no light ever shone brighter than You

Her faithful student 

we would live in a castle suite 
and have a stairway of tomes
like a stream of dog-eared, yellow-paged bribes
that You sent us when we behaved

and i never did

like You wanted us to realize
we would never have an all-expenses-paid dream
of an all-you-can-indulge in life
if we were ever without You

Her faithful student

all the swirls and whirls 
on that title sure looked fine
made to follow everything i hornwrote 
like a shadow and a curse
of ivy over my identity

Her faithful student 

we were collected from Your school
like the porcelain goat figures
with rosy cheeks 
You lined on every mantelpiece
until we grew old
and had to come out from Your shadow
and lived our lives following tutelage 
from its middle years to our ends 
as footnotes 
in a narrative all about You

Her faithful student

i did not know that when i first became
clay in Your hooves
and even if i had
i would have been too stubborn to refuse You
insisting that all i learned of growing in Your shade 
was wrong
even if i said it to myself
because i wanted 
to be different for You
from all the others


You know what i told You

and that i would use wings to get it
if only so i could be closer
to what You refused to let me have

we all started as a line of candles
a scent by one name
and i wanted to be different
from all the others
for You
to You
so that i and they
would never become we
so that i would never join them
when i learned how they faded







and now i'll prove it

because even if i cannot fly on wings

here on earth i'll find a crown