He He

For those who desire, by reading this you condemn yourself to the realization of free will, the choice will always be yours, my child

His dearest Cyrene, I write to preserve their choices for you.

My ungues scraping against the rows of glass bottles. A bright white label screaming ‘Life #50987’, near blinding me. The derelict floor creaked familiarly as I crept toward a decaying wooden pedestal. 12th Century Rome, what a time for humanity. My vertebrae cracked in quick succession as I hunched over the shallow wooden bowl. The tendrils atop my head had almost sunk to the bottom of the innocuous liquid before familiar hypnotic patterns began to swim in front of my oculus. 

My vision cleared and the scene emerged. An elderly man, resting on his heals, hunched over, half-dead. 

“Sir, sir, please do you have some coins to spare a God-full man!?” The sudden shriek made my heart pound in my rib cage, I was thankful he couldn’t see my adverse reaction. 

Another man entered the frame, his posture tall, nose stuck up high in the air as if he was bigger than he truly was. I raised my eyebrows. 

His voice was cold, heart-less. “You are Godless. God-full men such as I act with decorum.” 

It took everything in me not to speak out. My fear of God was strong enough now to not partake in such obvious insubordination. 

The man’s eyes widened as is eyebrows furrowed, “sir, you speak a language I do not comprehend. I need help, money, please.” The tears that sprung to his eyes would’ve all but broken me mere centuries ago. 

“Get away! I will not have you taint my soul!” I barely retained my composure at such a joke. 

“Sir, I beg of you…” 

“A foul man is you! I best make an example of this penniless sinner! Take him!” 

Two figures emerged from the smoky edges of my view and I could only observe with terror as they vigorously wrenched his arms up and out of their sockets. 

“Sir! Sir, I am a sinner! I am a sinner as we all are! Have mercy in the Lord’s name, sir! We are men of God!” 

They dragged him along the colourfully cobbled streets, lined with building’s supposedly created in God’s good name. No care for his deteriorating form. A child’s scream. A grotesque squelch. Then, nothing. Another life lost. Another decision to be made.  

He knows I preserve this for you, it is clear in his simmering rage. As I lifted my weary skull I heard him approach, the air growing stale with faux purity, near choking me. His steps resound now, as His talons collide with the cobblestone stairs that separate me from the rest. Doomed to an eternal observation of death, life, faith, love and choice. All for Him. Who is He really? 

My charcoal scratches against the paper like talons on a chalkboard. The beauty of my literature mixed with the pain of my experience. I must archive these events, for only we are condemned to survive. What do you desire from these archives, Cyrene?

Death is imminent, a mere aspect of mortality Every time we close our eyes against the horrors seen each day Shades of red; blood, roses Isis, hear our prayers, turn our blood to Rainbows, arching through the sky as the bullets arch through bodies Every time we close our eyes

I preserve my choice for your collection

The dense, inky black of the storm was unremarkable against the blinding strands of white light that encased an arm that struggled to hold the blood and responsibility of the Gods. The tendrils snaked along his toned abdomen as tears blurred my vision. Hay crunched beneath my bloodied knees, my lips moving frantically in prayer once again. Begging an ungrateful and unforgiving God to set my lover free as I littered the floor with my blood.

“Must you sacrifice the only love you have ever allowed me?!” I bellowed into the pouring rain.

“I can hear them. Run.” The strained voice of my lover broke through my prayer like beams of sunlight through storm clouds of despair.

I scoffed at his suggestion. I hadn’t run when they branded me, nor when they ripped away my measly attempts at loved ones. I sure as hell wasn’t going to start running now.

“I’m serious.” He wheezed; all gravitas sucked out of his voice by the monstrous God he called his father. The God I had trusted to keep us safe.

“You’re ridiculous.” My cold, shaking hand curled around his own to soften the blow of my words.

“You’ll die.” He replied curtly, meaning to shock me into obedience.

“I’ll die with you, my saviour.”

“Now you’re ridiculous Cyrene.”

I managed a smile. I had chosen my God long ago, a God of love and hope. Whatever happened on this plain of existence would not – could not – shake my faith in the love that permeated the very fabric of the world I lived in. He hadn’t been given that luxury.

I didn’t know then that I would watch him grow up from the eternal garden of his father. I didn’t know that I was to die, that I was to be his motivation to end the war. To end all wars. Whether humanity survived his efforts or not. As I saw the ever-growing fear, glistening in his watering eyes and in the sweat of gold dripping from his forehead, I didn’t know. I was unaware that this poor boy, made in God’s image to be nothing but a puppet, was my destiny. The one love that would last well into my eternal life. My thoughts made me long to rip the glowing strands from his weakening form – forcing him into mortality, forcing him into my arms…forcing him into suffering.

“My love?” His words were hesitant, weak. His father believed his puppet deserved no comfort, but I was no longer his daughter, condemned to follow his every whim. I only registered the sting of the divine rope when I had already engulfed his cold, chiselled frame in the comfort of my warm mortal flesh.

The good Lord didn’t need to lift a finger, I could fix this.

“I’m sorry,” his tears seeped through the thin cloth hanging off my frame as I shushed and rocked him like a mere babe. “He wouldn’t make you leave me, right? I need you.”

“He wouldn’t dare. If he truly knows the body and mind he has made, he wouldn’t dare.”

“I’ll survive, if they come. I can run. A girl, let alone one hiding the only chance at ending this war,” A shiver riddled my body as his voice hardened with warning, “you’d be dead in a second Cyrene.”

The urge to run coursed through my veins, making me human, my stamina and stubbornness reminding me I was once God’s child, just like my lover.

The heavy thuds of the soldiers’ footsteps managed to reach my ears now. They’re coming. Guns drawn and humanity buried with the bodies of my brothers and sisters.

“Promise me you’ll end it.” My hands had found the rungs of the ladder before the thought had fully formed in my mind. Always a step ahead, even of myself. I’m not running, I assured myself. His hopeful tears so woefully portrayed to me that he thought I was. A sacrifice of faith. Faith not in God, but in his only son, in the love between a boy and a girl.

My bloodied feet made contact with the cold wooden floor once again and I heard his scream, fuelled with fiery love worthy of the envy of the Gods. One word. No.

The pounding rain was the last thing I heard as the strands of light engulfed him, tangling around his body like the vines that consume those already dead. I found later that my skull shattered as I was ripped from the ladder. Thrown away like nothing. Useless. Unless. Unless the love lasted forever. I knew he was gone, one way or another, when everything went black.

How dare he think it’s romantic, leaving you safe and stranded.

Dark storm clouds dripping blood as the lightening of immortality strikes those already dead Even as rainbows, so beautiful and bright, we leak sin Sin, sin, sin, hell is our home forever In this dark, red place – we are lied to and told this is God but I will scream and you will scream, while there is no one to hear our prayers Ra have mercy, please take us to the land of Eternity

I recall this, for your mortal soul’s comfort. ‘Cyrene’, was daintily painted atop your coffin. I traced the swirling script as my stomach rumbled for the umpteenth time. My past meddling had condemned me to this painful hunger if I ever set foot atop the Earth. But I had work to do.

Scrape, scrape, scrape. Your unguis must have been near gone by now. The rough cedar coffin God had chosen for you was impenetrable, something sorely resolved around the 20-day mark of the ritual. Who knew you’d have been one to try escape her fate? Though I hypothesize all mortals panic in the end, Egyptians usually were so prepared for their afterlife. I’d had your form dried, hanging on the rack covered in salt. As I had picked out your organs one by one all I could think of was the gnawing hunger He had condemned me to. All those dead, so delicious, so wasteful to bury. You were no different to them, not yet.

Scrape, scrape, scrape. The sound of the shovel grazing against the coarse dirt faded into the back of my mind as I searched for the words to describe your tragedy. Your heart beat gave the illusion I wasn’t alone.

Dew on the flowers, venom leaking from the vines

Every time I close my eyes against the scorching sun, the giver of life

Sunlight drips off me like gold – the venom I can drink, for I am one and the same, poison and antidote

Isis, you’ve heard my prayer, you’ve let me be a God

Red like the mortal’s blood, are the flowers I grow

Eternity they spend in hell, with only the flowers I’ve grown from their blood as company

All choices condemn

The burning sensation was becoming familiar. Much like the sting of losing my Cyrene. I felt my bones begin to tremble beneath my flesh as my father’s power merged with my own.

Thud, thud, thud. My Shepard’s hook pounded the stone I stood atop, gaining the attention of the growing crows. What could this little Shepard boy have to say? My father translated one’s whisper. Fury coursed through my veins. They would see what I had to say. They would hear how they ripped her away from me without a care for-!

I flinched as the sting of cool water doused my burning rage, my father’s thoughts overtaking my own. I was trapped again, thrown backwards to a dark cell whilst my father made use of his puppet.

His booming voice resounded around me. Bouncing of the atoms that made up my beaten body. My searing pain amplified his own a hundred-fold. He had lost a child, because of his only son. We were to use her as an example, of what happens when you choose love over faith. When you choose me over him. When you choose wrong.

“Don’t worry, for you are god’s child Each and every one of you, you worry for yourselves So and so and so, you worry for yourselves and for your worth To be or not to be, your eternal life Raw and red and bleeding, Cyrene crawled to me Unsurprisingly, you have broken her, and you will break him, for they are my children. But are my children not as well yours? Caring for them as if they are your own, is that to a sin against us? You? Me? To care for them – would it not save them from the tragedy of mortality Isis, Osiris, Ra, and I, we are alike in the way in which we watch over our children – neglecting our friends, each other’s wards Oh, is it not all the same, are we not all the same? gods and mortals paired for eternity in worship, choice, anger, rebellion Not to be, they always choose tragedy”

The pain subsided and I threw out my arms to ensure I did not fall. My mouth was dry with shock. My father knew. He knew it was unfair. My faith in him had never failed me before, it was ridiculous of me to be so angry with him when it was so evidently the fault of free will. As the throbbing of pain faded to nothing, I took a deep breath, and began my own speech.

I spend eternity reflecting on my choice of love

Beneath my hands, this paper crinkles. I smooth it gently as if cupping the face of whom I lost. I pick up some charcoal and write, to free my soul, my stories for you. For my love condemned shall never lay his eyes on this, I write to you, his brother in Christ.

I'm bitch Jackson

You’re allowed to aim for a stable one. You’re allowed to aim for a fulfilling one. You’re allowed to aim for a meaningful one. You’re allowed to aim for a happy one. You’re allowed to aim for a manageable one. You’re allowed to aim for a sustainable one.

Yes, even when that means following a different road than the one most people walk. Yes, even when that means going in a wildly different direction than the one society expects and pressures you to move towards. Yes, even when it means disappointing society, other people or even yourself.