dreaming

for hana, who was with me for 17 years. i miss you.

the bite of gentle girls.

written with lines given to me by @quecksilvereyes/@glasswaters! full text under the cut, with larissa's words in purple

This is your life. This is all you've lived.

Here is where you know the rules. There is no confusion or fear. It's all the same and it drives you mad but you can't imagine it any other way.

Wondering is addictive, forbidden, the sweet taste of rebellion on your tongue. The golden fruit, the blood red apple. The thought: what if there's more out there? What if I leave?

Freedom is a thing with wings and you've always walked with your head down but the sun is warm when you reach out a hand to feel it. Golden light between your fingers. Almost an embrace. Wanting makes a home in your ribs. You can almost taste the wind in your teeth.

Look up. The door is left unlocked, if only you'll open it.

Somewhere out there is the world.

60 mph.

I ; who/le.

ACT ONE.

Curtains rise. The lights are blinding. Actors fill the stage, setting the story into motion.

In the wings, you wait. 

The shouts of the stage echo throughout the theater. A gunshot would not startle you as much. 

Backstage, the world is still. Everyone waits for their role. There is no other reason for them to exist.

ACT TWO.

Walk in the background. Be more than one person. There is a crowd here, you try to tell the audience, even if it’s just me.

There’s you, and you, and you, and you. 

Actors and stagehands trapped between curtains. Audience trapped in the seats, held down by the dark.

A light follows you. 

You can’t see the world beyond it.

ACT THREE.

Here is a happy ending where everyone pretends to have gotten what they wanted.

The couple is together, the children look to a bright future, the conflict is resolved. 

In the wings, you wait for the break of

                                              the chandelier—

                                                           the catwalk—

                                                                       a bone—

The curtain falls. 

The world stills its motion. 

You keep waiting. It will always come. Nothing ever survives the story. 

INTERLUDE.

Murmur of conversation. Lights on the other side. A brief respite.

Costumes are changed. Makeup is fixed. Lines are studied.

No one will look at each other; we only wear the faces we are given and those faces are only visible on stage. 

Who are we when the story is paused? Who exists outside of these roles?

You don’t have a name. 

You are just a background character meant to fill in the space. 

You wonder what it’s like to be on the other side.

ACT FOUR.

Another screaming match between sisters. It is here that you thrive, stepping out of the shadows and into center stage. 

You, who was never important before, suddenly become the very thing that holds the play together. 

The audience can’t take their eyes off you.

It is exhilarating.

It is agonizing. 

The fight is scripted. You can only save one and that is a choice made for you. One sister dies, knife to her throat, and one sister watches from the cradle of your arms. 

You are not important until death has arrived. Perhaps you are not a background character, but a banshee prophesying death, or a grim reaper whose arrival is inevitable.

ACT FIVE.

Here is the end: bodies on the stage, blood pooling around them. The audience is silent and horrified. The lights burn, unrelenting in their exposure of the crime. 

You are alive. You are on your knees amid the carnage. 

Here is the one who is meant to be your heart; dead.

Here is the villain who set it all in motion; dead.

Here is you, the survivor; alive. 

Curtains fall. There is no applause. 

cw: cannibalism, body horror, needles

. . .

A severed finger drops to the floor. The blood has been sucked clean out of it, leaving only pale skin and bone. Dirt is stuck under the nail, jagged and worn raw. 

This one must have tried to climb out of the garden.

Above you, Mother slurps loudly, eating her fill. She’s so hungry these days. She doesn’t notice anything beyond the hunger. 

You miss when she would carry you around the house, humming as she held you up to see the visiting hummingbirds. They were so small and fast, darting between flowers and feeders with their long beaks and vibrant plumage. 

Sometimes, Mother would hold her hand out and a hummingbird would come to rest on it. In those moments, Mother was magic and you wanted more than anything to be like her. 

She smiled when you told her this and passed the hummingbird to you. So gently, she nudged the fragile creature into your small hands and it was the brightest moment of your life. The sunlight was warm, Mother was pretty and soft, the hummingbird was patient as your clumsy fingers pet it. 

Then Mother cupped her hands around yours.

at last the house is silent. dawn approaches with gentle promise;         it’s over. it’s over. it’s time to find the light.

no more wails or wraiths. the anger of memory has died, embers cooling and ash drifting away on the breeze.

abandoned only by people the gardens are wild and lovely;         blooms awaken from the night         and cradle family graves with years of care.

silent is the property, a foreign stillness settling in the bones and foundations of the house. here is the aftermath:         blood and blades and secrets.         tears and memory and restless dead.         nightmares and dark.                                                                                       haunting now finished

here is the statue of a weeping woman. eerie in the night, with weather-worn veil and hands cradled before her chest.

a bird nests within her palms. her stone gives home to this body of hope—

                                    sweet song at dawn                         where there is finally nothing to fear.

                                                    sinking into flesh.

Humid comes the heat, thunderstorm rolling in like a promise for change,  

            for something better on your skin—                     satin or silk or soft hands on thighs.

    Cherry red whispered against your lips a promise of sweetness dark & lingering in the still air; lipstick smears & locked doors,                                        Better than the rain 

Drops against your fingertips & the whole world turns gray beyond your arm. Not dark.      Never dark. Summer storms are color heavy—                             orange & red, sky in blush                             blue swallows all like a camera filter                             for that coming-of-age you always dreamed of;

Summer’s almost over you whisper, eyes fixed on a world ending       yet again, cyclical & soothing & more a beginning than anything else.

Steady heartbeat of                                 soon—                                               soon—                                                               soon— 

The sky is steady above you, clouds rolling from horizon to horizon. On your tongue is sugar, a remnant of something good a desire for what’s yet to find its way to your empty hands.

no, you didn’t go out that night. no, you didn’t see anything. no, the mirrors in the house are covered for a different crime                                                              of knowing yourself                                                              of knowing you’re not yourself.

eyes catching in the window, reflection reaching out and                    you know them by the way you can’t escape them;

                                      same mouth same nose same tired shoulders                                                                   who else could it be?

say nothing. silence is a right you wear like a blanket, your only comfort from the storm. see the ghost but don’t speak the name—       

                               maybe they ran away, you say.                                                   they always wanted to.

innocent is not the same as innocence and neither fit you well.

                     bury the body. hide the knife.

their name is your name,

                    which is to say there’s no name at all.

digital collage ft. blackout poetry from an old work of mine.