the lizard queen blogs again

The white picket fence has nothing on the perimeters I learned

My life’s work, how to erect

Keep the posts firm and well-rooted

Tamp down and anchor into the earth

If done correctly there should be minimal sway

The salted air crashing upon your face staring at the open waters shouldn’t feel more than just a breeze day

Forecasts are unpredictable and for that you need to make sure your guard is up, the structures secure

The interwoven balances of the wood beams well aligned

So you see where the problem lay;

The more rigid, the better

The posts and beams as stoic as the internal currents

Don’t ever let the neighborhood see the swaying paneling from wood planks

In reality you need to have the flexibility

Weathering the harshest storms needs adaptability and resilience in swaying in the gales

He’s going to tell you it’s all in your head and you’ve got nothing to worry about

You smile and nod and say you’ll be fine

You try to say you’re mentally working through your crash down

She will convince you of your self obligations to keep firm at all times,

You can only spiral at the thought of neighbors knowing what you know and they don’t

Inside you’re the keeper of the lighthouse in your mind,

watching insurgent waves crash upon rocks,

the gale force winds battering upon the wood fences

Lighthouses are not meant to keep folks out,

A Reflection for the Fire Horse

My world exists in rose tint

It’s hard to make exemptions when the red flags show a darkened maroon

Unless you lose yourself alone and adrift in the mutiny of a break up

The red this year gallops in with a fiery orange rage

Amidst the arrays of golden blaze

You weren’t supposed to have a good year

Why can’t you suffer like the rest of everyone

But lo, look at the rubies and how they shine

The red is just prismatic enough to hide the flaws and make you see past

And so too, will the confusion leave you breathless

When the rubies you expected reveal as emeralds

There is suddenly more green in your periphery

You were afraid to let your heart open again

All the men and women who came before thought you were too wild and untamed

You meant to believe that there was only one who understood why you run

And tonight when he listened to you

When someone dare approach

The guarded mare yielded her heart enough to see the sky was no longer wrath and rose

The world on fire now raged iridescent

The one who listened when you asked “please, be gentle with me, go slow on this journey”

And so the wild and beautiful beast herself learned how she was free to exalt

The first day you take the shot, it’s a pinch.

The seventieth day you take the shot, it’s also a pinch.

Your clothes get bigger, so does the vacant space in your closet, because nothing suits you.

Your wallet gets emptied as you replenish what you’ve lost - the memories woven into fabrics that no longer suit you.

Now you wear victory,

And sure, some excess skin.

And sure, we can wear the clothes we envied the cool girls in high school wearing, so you reclaim the brands for your inner teen -

Nobody said you’d have to learn to accept the wrinkles with your ripped jeans and tripped genes.

What. A. Scene.

Now my eyes are larger and wider than before.

The moon face has slimmed and borne a crescent in my side profile.

Apparently, my face shape is oblong, guess I have to learn how to do my makeup again and pick out for flattering glasses frames for my face.

I also see better - because I’m seen better. But that is not better, is it?

How is Jupiter less visible than Venus?

Oh, right.

People sought too much distance until they saw you, then thought you deserved proximity.

You really notice now how much you were never noticed then.

My feet seemed to shrink. Now I need new shoes.

I miss the ones I walked in, because I knew the familiar path I traveled in, but now it’s not stable and secure.

I somehow need smaller shoes to match my smaller clothes.

Did you also know you’d feel nerves when an ingrown toenail cuts into your seams and you’d feel the pain all night? It presses on your nerves.

Perhaps you did not expect to get it-

And at the podiatrist’s the next day, nobody assumes you’re a diabetic.

How funny the big toe is where you find your balance and you’re fighting daily to not lose it when you’re actually gaining it.

My breasts shrunk, I need new bras.

I go for ones that I feel comfortable in, yet also ones I feel divine in.

And to think it’s also how I finally drew their eyes in.

The coworkers who’ve never said anything to you now flock to ask your secret. You get calls, messages, side comments, the praise,

Oh, even the “wow you’re so brave!”

Why is a weekly shot a moment of heroics?

“I actually needed it,” I add, “because of my genetics.

My hormones run on chaos and disorder, and it’s like I’m in a prison, but the new warden I’ve hired calls The Shot, and so I check in on the improvements daily, and weekly, and monthly, and I think it’ll be for a very long sentence.”

But nobody cares if you’re a prisoner to your body,

Seems they just wanted the fence to look pretty.

“How did you do it? You look phenomenal!”

“Thank you, it’s my medication and a structured plan!”

“Wow, how exceptional!”

And I hear this whilst shivering and teeth clattering.

I also lost my insulation and body heat, so despite being brought into the warmth, I’ve never felt more cold.

People are so quick to help you warm up now.

Sometimes I think of Cassandra who tried to tell others about the larger body that was locked out of the gates, and how it took for a sudden shrinkage for her to have been proven right.

Something in front of their faces was there the whole time.

Maybe because they didn’t see the Trojan Horse as a threat.

Funny. Most men never thought me worthy of Trojans either.

And women never thought me worthy of an enemy.

Good thing for them then, how my hair has also thinned and shredded as much as my sanity seems to have.

I’m told it will grow back, stronger and healthier than before.

Do I grow it back showing my age and silver strands of wisdom and weary, or mask it until things look normal again?

The real side effect nobody tells you when losing weight,

Is how you’d lose yourself to find yourself,

And that’s not the half of it, even if you are now half of it.

I’ve lost, it seems, how I saw the world,

I suspect they have long seen the signs

Venture a guess of how this scene plays out

First, begin the dance of hands

Five spindles intertwine with five alike

A gentle caress of the knuckles along silken skin, up and down along a forearm

Two sets of irises breech contact with each other

As a momentary pause erupts in a collision of mouths, lips on skin on teeth on tongue

On neck and collarbone until

The choreography becomes slowly calamitous as two sentient statues disarm themselves of their armors

Ever so recklessly

Then limbs take flight

Arms embracing the other glorious and heavenly body that lie before them

Legs that tangle and knot like impatiently thrown skeins of yarn

Molten cores inside, magnetize and then magnetize

Bodies in their naked splendor

Curves bending, waves cascading

Over and over riding the surf until it crashes into a roaring climax

The collision is instant, external, exquisite,

And then, ever fleeting

as breathes began to taper

and their skin, a color once sanguine, so gently begins to pale

Two souls on a collision course

A sensual supernova

And then there is quiet in the universe

Stars, once jealous observers, flicker with understanding and retreat for the dawn

It’s not enough to emerge

The apparition of perfection, unflawed yet flawed with near perfect precision

The curves and waves of the thrashing aquamarine

Contrast to the gilded and primastic ivory of her figure

We see her strength on the surface level - frantic waves pounding and breaking against her

Yet they don’t stop to wonder

How difficult was it to come out from the unruly chains that kept your head below the water?

Or for all the kicking and screaming and clawing you did gasping for oxygen?

Do they know the pearls you came out wearing are not a gift from the sea gods, but the testament of fights you endured over the years?

You are drenched, dripping, drowning in pearls, and yet people see but a strand or two

Does anyone stop to ask why you wear so many pearls?

Who were the men and women who adorned you with reasons that hardened over years into something that we only see beauty in?

Do they ask to bite your pearls to see if you’re telling the truths you wear?

Does anybody know that the when the waves crash perfectly against your body, framing you as a piece of art, that you only feel the shame and stinging of salt-coated lashings?

Do they know how many times you almost gave into the deep abyss?

When the goddess of love and beauty emerges, she is a wild leonine thing, bathed in sunlight after surviving the hurricane

When you call her the goddess of love and beauty, she won’t disagree

But she also remembers that she is also a goddess of battles and lust and passion and pleasure

She fought to be whom you perceive her to be

So tread your own waters lightly

Note: Spoilers for both below

- eldest daughter, built up all her life by others who had huge expectations for her

- was forced to up and relocate to the cold north as a teen because of a family tragedy

- at one point was content to marry a man from an abusive family knowing it could somehow benefit her family

- got separated from her sister, lost her parents

- literally saw their father die in front of them

- both has their bodies brutalizes in a horrible way (Sansa got married off to Ramsay Bolton, Nesta got thrown in a cauldron by the King of Hybern)

- both also received justice delivering the death below against the aforementioned men

- suffered an unimaginable amount of trauma that would’ve broken most and still preserved

- learned how to play the game in their own way and achieve their own power

- both find themselves going up against a deranged blonde queen

- always kept hope in their younger, slightly feral, killing machine sister (Arya and Feyre don’t just sound alike either)

- Both were willing at the very end to give up their lives/power to save the ones they love (White Walker battle in Winterfell, saving Feyre and Rhys)

- One embraces her title as The Queen of The North, the other embraces her title as Lady Death

In conclusion: don’t always assume the worst of the eldest daughter with a chip on her shoulder. They’re badasses who deserve love and respect.

I said what I said. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻