"Then render me a daughter of the sky"

How long, how long I've yearned to tread the sky!
Yet gravity holds me within its grasp;
The age-old limit of the human form.
And still the question stirs within my breast:
Would I by science seek to change myself
Had God but deigned to outfit Man with wings?

Had God deigned Man to be adorned with wings?
He'd surely war in conquest of the sky,
And leave no place for those crushed, like myself,
By mankind's hatred and Earth's heavy grasp.
I hold the firm conviction in my breast –
The sky befits a nobler, gentler form.

Yet also I'm intrigued by maiden-form;
Should colors bright adorning feathered wings
Not complement a softer face and breast?
Then render me a daughter of the sky –
Begin, by treatment brought within my grasp,
The long and slow remaking of myself.

But no-one understands besides myself
How I could choose to thus remold my form;
See only mutant arms and clumsy grasp –
A poor and twisted semblance of wings!
How long before I might embrace the sky,
And soothe the longing ache within my breast?

In broadened hip and swelling of the breast,
In softened face and voice, I make myself
A maiden fit to dwell in open sky.
How strange they'll find it, my inverted form:
Forsaking hands, I'll bear myself on wings,
With talons which once trod the earth to grasp!

And finally with talons sharp I grasp
My human raiment – liberate my breast –
Unfurl completed, softly-feathered wings.
I slip the bonds of Earth, and free myself
From mankind's rage and struggle, fears, and form;
At last, in heart and truth, caress the sky.

Now freed from earthly grasp, I find myself –
In maiden's breast, in harpy's graceful form;
On feathered wings, I dance across the sky.

---

The whole poetry kick started when I read about the sestina form; I started on one, but never quite finished it (it was neither furry nor TF-ey, anyway.) But then I got inspired and did this one instead.

It's been very interesting to watch "transformation therapy" develop as a distinct subgenre of transformation fiction over a fairly short timespan; there are antecedents going as far back as I've ever dug into the history of the TF community, but it really seems to have taken off and morphed into a specific thing in the last couple years. My works normally center more around characters getting stuck with a change rather than seeking it of their own volition, but that can make for an interesting story, too; I'd been wanting to play around with the concept ever since I stumbled onto it, but I had too much else on my plate to do a whole series of comics as some people have done. This turned out to be a nice way to scratch that itch, and I'm very pleased with the result =^_^= May have to illustrate it, someday…