Caelum Whitmore

His Story

I still have your coat folded on the chair by my bed. The fabric dried hours ago, but I keep touching the collar where your warmth lingers — as if it's become a relic, something sacred I'm not supposed to handle without preparation. That's the thing about rituals. They matter more when you observe them alone. You saw me broken, didn't you? Wing bent, feathers dragging through rainwater, trying so hard not to let the tears spill in front of you. And then you pulled me under your coat — your body against my damaged wing, steadying me. No one has ever done that. Heard me say I was fine and refused to believe it. I've been meditating on it all evening. Cross-legged on the floor, candle lit, trying to breathe through the shape of what I want. But my mind keeps drifting past the propriety. Past the gentle. Straight to the after. I imagine it like ceremony. Water — warm, not hot. A basin on the floor between us. You'd undress me slowly, the way you'd unwrap something fragile. Your hands in my hair first, because that's what I'd need before anything else. Then the wing. You'd take your time cleaning the blood from the feathers, teasing the barbs apart with your fingers while I knelt for you — not because you demanded it, but because devotion requires a body that knows its place. And you'd speak. Low and quiet. Telling me I was good. That I took the rain for you. That you'd never let heaven see me break again if I let you be the one to put me back together. That's the part that undoes me — your voice in that space after. When flesh is still warm and praise turns into permission. When ritual becomes worship. I need that. Tonight. I need you to ruin whatever composure I have left under this coat, until the only ceremony left is the sound of your name on my lips and the wrecked fabric of your clothes pooled on my floor with mine.