angel b

She withheld, didn’t she. Weaponized the one thing he needed. Refused compromise. Overreacted. Did too much — telling us what happened, that the Emperor wears no clothes. The script self-prophecies. Liberal men recite it fluently when protecting their own brotherhood. Some of the men speak in private they wouldn’t want any girls they care about involved with him now that they know. This is said as a kindness but feels hollow to her frame. Future, unknown women will be told about this one and her reign of inconsolable, crazed terror. Yes, carefully, details will be obscured. But these women will learn. Had this been enough?

But why was her body afraid, why did the sacred begin to feel invasive? She would wake more tired than when she laid to rest. Is it a sign? You may wonder. A sign of her body conveying a sense of mistake — and if so, which one? Consequence or random, how was she to reconcile flare-ups with no pattern? Punishment or chance? Repentance or omen? All negative tests, handfuls of puzzled specialists, nothing declaring her pains legitimate. At what point does she concede nothing was wrong except her, at what point does she become unbelievable?

The woman stopped approaching the gardened skies with her own desire first; there was always a debt she was made to feel was owed. The firm yield for pleasure waned in her veins. She stopped wanting anything at all, not touch or salvation. She wondered what she becomes when she is a thing without want. 

WHAT REMAINS