melistopheles.tumblr.com

Nothing is different: thin snow beats Against the dining-room window-pane. I am totally unchanged, But a man came to see me.

I asked: "What do you want?" "To be with you in hell." I laughed, "Ah, there I can't Oblige you, you'd wish us ill."

His dry hand touched a petal With a light caress. "Tell me how they kiss you, Tell me how you kiss."

And his eyes, glinting dully, Never slid from my ring; Never a single muscle Moved under his snakeskin.

O, I know: his joy, his greed, Is to know intensely, eye to ete, There's nothing that he needs, Nothing I can deny.

And so it was one morning, some weeks later, as she rested her forehead on the ground, knees tucked neatly beneath her chest as she breathed into the snug folds of her pose, that his voice took her by surprise.

“I know you have to go, soon, but if you have even a little extra time, I’d love for you to see the rest of the place.”

All the relaxation evaporated from her body and he must have seen it for he added:

“I’ve sensed that you’d rather keep your distance and if it’s me that worries you, any of your yogi companions here would happily take my place and show you around.”

This was a crux moment.

The trauma in her past simultaneously screamed in her head to run away from this man and to run towards him. His soft, rasping voice was all allure and pull. Running would be smartest, the survivor’s choice, but when did survival make way for living again? A tiny, tiny part of her brain whispered that she would have to be close to him to show him she was wise to it all, and so what if being close felt a little like safety and belonging? Then that was just a nice coincidence.

She lifted her gaze up and around to him to answer, and the words she should speak, “maybe another time,” hitched upon his bluest eyes and the soft, unchallenging gaze they bathed her with, and she acquiesced.

And then there was Arthur Harrow.