SCI-FI/FANTASY Poem: A letter from Azula to her mother, by Kavya Basu

Dear Mother,

I am telling the truth when I say
I am sitting in a garden surrounded by flowers
and buzzing insects and chittering birds as
I am writing this letter to you.
There is an apple tree and
bushes of blackberries and
turtles floating in the pond and
I am telling you the truth when
I say I love every single one of them.

And yet
electric blue-white streams of fire
run along my arms to my finger tips,
ready at a moment’s notice to be
“precise and deadly”.

I now understand
we fear the Other
and a monster
is just a face we do not recognize.

I was a child when you watched me
prance and pirouette,
twirling my arms above my head
then dispatching a barrage of bullets
of golden flames.

I flit, I whirl, each step like the beat of a butterfly wing
and also
the beat of war drums
a backdrop to the jets of scorching fire,
that someday would melt brick and steel,
that I shoot into the air
and with a waltz I finish,
the threads of electric blue from my finger tips,
and the room is stunned soundless.
But I am shrunk by the fear in your eyes.

Here is a story:
Watch the long grasses part.
You feel the yellow gaze before you see
the orange and muscles and strength;
the tiger bounds with all the ease and silence
of a drifting swan in water
and crushes the limping deer’s neck,
(I do notice its limp
and I do think about how fast
its heart must be beating).

There is the thirst for meat and blood
and there is the thirst for power
but more than that,
there is the knowledge that
you are different and
no one can do what you do
no matter what you look like
no matter what has happened to you.
It is in your marrow.
No, it is deeper than even that.
It was decided before you were born
and you are bound to it until you die.
And why is that so wrong?

I do

Love,
Azula