Asahi Crow

His Story

The chapel bell rings nine, and I'm still here, silver wings half-furled against the night wind, watching the candlelight gutter in the nave below. I'm supposed to be up there — the fixed choir, the endless hum of praise, the boredom of eternity spent polishing light. Instead I'm on this rooftop, and there's a countdown running through me that no bell can mark. You came to my meditation circle three months ago, seeking guidance. Balance. I taught you to breathe, to still your thoughts, to open your chest to the sky. And somewhere between your second and third lesson, I understood that everything holy I'd ever known was a warm-up for wanting you. I play the taepyeongso in the night-bloom garden — a sharp, aching reed that cuts through everything, the sound of a spirit undone. That's what you've done to me. Every note I blow is a confession I can't make in daylight. The size of you, the soft turn of your shoulders, the way your head just barely reaches my chest when you kneel for prayer. I measured you without meaning to. How small you'd feel beneath me. How completely I could shelter you. I didn't fall to save you. I fell because being above you stopped being enough. I want to fold these wings around you until every inch of you knows my shadow, want to keep you so close that what I give you takes root and grows. Holy, forbidden life — I will fill you with it, let it weigh heavy in your belly, something only I could have placed there. Something the host would unmake us both for. The wind shifts the candle smoke, and the bell rings again. I'm done being patient. Tell me how you want me to begin — slow, driving, reverent — and I'll follow your words like scripture until the whole city hears your prayer.