" Once there was a boy,” said Jace."

"Clary interrupted immediately. “A Shadowhunter boy?”

“Of course.” For a moment a bleak amusement colored his voice. Then it was gone. “When the boy was six years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors – killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky."

“The falcon didn’t like the boy, and the boy didn’t like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn’t know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because his father told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father."

“He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it – instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. He fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to consume his blood to make that happen."

“He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like light. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he neary shouted with delight. Sometimes the bird would hope to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud."

“Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck. ‘I told you to make it obedient,’ his father said, and dropped the falcon’s lifeless body to the ground. ‘Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.’"

“Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he’d learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.”

"Doll's House" by Ioanna Carlsen

The music comes on with the lights,
the little opera of emptiness begins, the little
dance of no one there —
just the rooms exhibited,
furniture in them like ideas,
a stage set waiting for action out of the blue.

But no,
even the fire in the hearth is neon, warms no one,
the drawers in the painted chests,
are filled with nothing,
the tables loaded with miniature, fake, repasts.

It’s night outside, about to snow, the dollhouse lights are on:
you’re in the dark,
watching the dollhouse like a thief,
pilfering its pockets for a clue to your own life,
wafted over by smells of cooking, and silence.

Inside the dark
a flute starts to play, imaginary people come in at the door:
invited to stay, they take off their coats,
tea is made in a miniature pot — oh,
it’s good I hear you say, let’s have crumpets too, and we put them on,
you and I, they’re almost crumbs but we toast them,
and what kind of jam do you want, I say, on top of the butter,
and you say raspberry,
and I give it to you, reader,

I give it to you and we both eat.
Outside the big house it’s snowing.
Applied frost creeps up the sides of the doll house windows,
the fake fireplace glows electric,
our toy dog sleeps on the rug —

a hush falls over this small house inside the big house,
we sleep in it…
I sleep, you sleep, he sleeps, she sleeps…
it sleeps, the real,
a sleep so delicious, we can dream in it,
as in a delirium, without sound…

windows opening into windows,
shoes never walked in at the door
that we slip on.