of people and beasts

      Dear Beggar,       they love you. Now, at this moment, but they exclude “then”; actually, thinking of it, they suddenly decide that, yeah, you were worthy of their love even “then”.       Tis you, who deeply despised all their feasts; tis you, who cherished only your own life; tis you, who ran away from their Hope — what have you done?       You just turned into a phoenix.       So what? You are a phoenix, big deal. You’re barely bigger than an eagle, you’ll be dying again and again, and your heart — the one Hope had once stolen for his peculiar crafts — your heart is now hidden under the blushing soft feathers, but no one can reach it.       Except for you.              Dear Beggar,       or should I say “Phoenix”? I do not know; I’ll wait till you burn down to ashes or get yourself a fancy sun halo — until then, you’re merely a Beggar.       But you’d disagree, won’t you?       You’ve convinced both them and yourself that everything has changed: “Oh, she wants to come back to our Hope? Well then! He will gladly accept her!”       You smile: “He will”, but there's something more.       Upon meeting him you say, quietly: “You won’t do it again”, and stab his chest with the sharpest shard of your heart — the one he took care of a long time ago — and stand over him, watching his agony.       Southern wind hugged you from behind, and you reminisced.       Of how weirdly your heart stopped for a moment, empty and dull like it wasn’t even real, when you first saw him. Then — of how it got stolen from your chest and appeared in Hope’s back pocket. How it brightened with a rough brush of his sandy lips, how it was filled with vivid blood, how it was glued back together and you were promised that it won’t shatter — ever.       Still, you were a Beggar, and no one wanted to doubt it.       Except for you. And one day the void — on your right and above — consumed you; so, you smashed your heart to pieces, you took its shard and suddenly…

you were a phoenix.