/

goddess without a name. she calls herself female, wears the sky as her mane. her eyes are glimmering with stars; the night sky is encased within them. she is at once the oldest and the youngest. she is eternal and temporary. she is the sky; she is the air; she is the world. she is.

/

they call her powerful. she dances in starlight, preens in daylight, thrives in the shadow. she is at once everything and nothing. she is prayed to for forgiveness, for strength, for success. she is summoned for miracles; she is summoned for sacrifice; she is summoned for ritual. she walks the earth when they do not need her; she knows she will soon be needed; they are always yearning, always desperate, always craving. she has a hundred names; she has more. she likes none of them.

/

they begin to forget her. she did not think anything could be worse than a hundred unknown names. little did she know: no name is worse than a hundred bad ones.

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the old gods are unknown now; forgotten; dripping from memory like so many spilled glasses. her cohort wane and fade and separate. they do not know each other now.

/

she passes an old god in the street. she knows only their First name now; she knows what that means. when they fade only the First name is left; the original; the oldest; dancing on the fringes of so many dying memories of so few dying gods. they do not need to be worshipped but they do need to be known. she is one of the seen gods. she has always been lucky in that fact. this old god is different. they are unseen. they will always be unseen, unless they loom too close. the other old god will be the last to fade; this she knows. death is always the end, after all.

/

she walks the streets with so many mortals. she finds a city with too many immortals, too many beings masquerading as mundane. she can sense them always; the edge of her senses; drawing her focus. their presence is a constant itch on the edges of her awareness. she hates this. she loves this.

/

she joins the masquerading many. she gives herself a name; it is shorter, sharper than her First. zita they call her, because it is what she says is hers. they do not question. mortals are selfish: they do not care. mortals are funny: they care too much. mortals have always been adorable, but the masquerading many, they are fascinating.

/

the woman is something else, like nothing she has sensed or seen. her hair is short and brown and curled; her eyes a violet that speaks to how little she is related to the people she sees as family. she pleads mortal but bleeds something different. the goddess is drawn.

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they are the sky and the earth woven together. they are night skies and violet twilight. they are not each others everything; they hold themselves separate. yearning. desperate. craving. no, they are not everything to one another.

/

they will be so much more.