Incandescent

by Seer

Verse 3: Prometheus

My blood has always run rather hot.

But I am not fireproof, and sometimes I wonder how much longer I can live in her glow until I ignite entirely. Soot and ash and the dust of memory for a mare that could light the whole world.

Sometimes I wonder if she was ever lesser, like I was. In all ways, I was lesser. But goddesses aren’t like that, are they? They remain preserved in the state of perfection they’ve always been in. And though I know she could not possibly have always been as she is now, I find my stupid mortal mind unable to comprehend such a thing.

To think of her imperfect is to blaspheme.

And yet, a small, selfish part of me wishes that I had met her when she didn’t quite smoulder as intensely. When her heart was safe to hold. Because, hot-blooded as I might be, I am still just a mare who somehow stole fire from the heavens. I am still but a lovestruck fool playing with the whole sun and, when I touch it, it burns my hooves.

I wonder what it would be like to love her and yet not count the ways in which I am her lesser, though I recount as gladly as one would a prayer as each one feels sacred. I wonder what it would be like to not be rendered near-blind by my constant awe. I wonder sometimes whether she is awed by me? But, of course, the question is foolish. Because goddesses are always perfect, and the sun always shines, and not for one moment could a simple, foolish mortal mare shine even a billionth as bright as a supernova does.

But even through all that, it’s not that thought which makes me discard these notions and return to attempting to glimpse even just an afterthought of her shine, climbing on wax wings that could incinerate at any moment. No, what makes me stop, after I wonder about a life spent where I might not be always possessed by her, where I don’t submit myself as a parishioner in the face of almighty god, is when a simple notion occurs to me.

Would that even be love?