#hierodule

TIL about a Tyranid bioform previously unknown to me and I feel like I should share this bc more people need to know.

There is a woman as is a jewel, As reflects all light, all colour, all existence A woman precious, rare and brilliant: She whose every word is refined and precise Yet full of the warmth of the bedchamber As if she were exchanging intimacies with you Even as she speaks of mundane things So much so that it startles-- All of a sudden, you feel her lover! Why, her speech is no less than The spoken equivalent Of her warm, bare skin Pressed against yours After hours of love's play! Yet, marvel of marvels, This is not some cheap imitation jewel But a miracle fully and completely natural: Not a voice schooled, put upon to please men But a genuine honey Of that rare woman So alive in her sensuality We thought her a beast extinct, A hierodule, a houri mythical: A woman in whose veins honey flows, Flows in her sex the honey abundant, The heat of voluptuousness Alive within her womb Not killed, spayed or frozen As it is with ordinary women-- But surging up from her hips Suffusing her limbs, their movements With its heat like wine; Up, up and out From her lasciviously grinning mouth The honey-wine pours Daring, free, audacious Rolling sweetly from her lips Striking sparks from her eyes Playful yet full of might. Lalita, Venus, Lalita! In her eyes flashes knowledge A great wisdom learned From scriptures of not only paper, But those of celluloid, music, intoxicants, Of experience lived in and through the flesh And never does she hide this knowledge By false veils, false demureness, false shame: She but displays it freely through her mien And the doors of Alexandria swing open All of Babylon bursts into bloom And all Arcadia rings with cheer. Lalita, Venus, Lalita! Indeed, is she not That very species of woman Who, in the ancient days Became the mistresses of kings, The sovereign queens of great courts, Ruling from behind the bedcurtains? Oh, praise, praise, praise be to all the gods That she has not been snatched from us By some such tyrant Made but another jewel in his crown Hidden from us jealously In the fleshly treasure-chamber Of some royal harem! For a treasure is no treasure Lest it is freely displayed, shared Enriching the lives of all Who are by its radiance Touched, enraptured Showered with her bliss: Out flows the nectar, Out flows the laughter, Out flows the power So graciously, liberally given. Lalita, Venus, Lalita! Accept these adorations we, your subjects --For you enspell all: Men, women, androgynes-- Now heap at your altar For in our devotion We are all as those beasts you keep: Cats as lithe and as sinuous as yourself Purring and curling at your feet Revelling in utmost bliss As with your husky laughter You honour us With an invitation To your Great Play.

As my sister and I Said our farewells After a too-short, Cruelly short Stolen morsel Of a moment Of friendship, Of loving understanding, Of true happiness She looked at me-- She so calm and collected and serious (Oh, I do not know how she does this!) While my eyes were red and wet from tears (I always a storm of emotions)-- And holding my gaze, She told me That she loved me And then held me so tight, So tight-- That as she pulled away from me It was as if she tore out A piece of my beating heart Carrying it off in her pocket As she walked off into the rain. And I was left there standing With a bleeding, gory, aching cavern In my chest, There for everyone to see. Frozen in place, I would have collapsed there and then Had the shock not been As deep as that of Bereavement-- The shock as violent and as sudden As that of a man who's been guillotined But has not realised He is dead yet. Reader, You must understand Why this is-- Therefore, let me elaborate: I am an aging, lone, embittered woman-- Not entirely through choice But many a circumstance too long to list here And not for fucking want of trying. Friendship, and love Of physically present, Flesh and blood human beings Are alien to my hermit's existence: Such rare visitors --So few have I ever been able to Even have a conversation with, Let alone be on the same wavelength with; So few are the fellow bhakta crazies!-- That I can barely even begin to understand them, Process them Before they are gone. And after a lifetime of abandonments, The pains of which have nearly killed me every time, It's proven to be suicidally foolish for me To believe in love or friendship given Without deceit, insincerity, frivolousness, emotional vampirism Or a needy tyrant's chains-- Oh, I am done, So fucking done With being made a fool of. Therefore I do not love fully Or let myself be loved fully Except by the Divine-- S/He being free of Human limitations And the only one who has ever done for me Even half of what I have done for my friends Only to discover I have never mattered to them As much as they've mattered to me. When I love, I love so deeply Only God can love me back With equal passion, depth --And this is not a fucking boast But simple, astounded, Over and over again disappointed Experience!-- No, only with the Divine Do I have no danger Of yet another Stupid, idiotic self-sacrifice I've done out of a simple sense of "Well, this is what a friend would do for another" Only to realise my idea of friendship Was more naively giving, Going-to-the-ends-of-the-world-ing Than theirs: Only to realise I was somewhere On the lowest rung of acquaintance, A person barely remembered To someone for whom I would have been ready to give my all. And I am done with it. I am done with sacrifices, Done with my foolishness, Done with those who are happy to but take, take, take While they themselves Might perhaps only occasionally Remember to throw a small, sharp, throat-piercing bone To the bitch under the table Being kicked by their feet. No, no; friendship, let alone love, Is to me an ex-alcoholic's relapse With a complete off-the-rails blackout And waking up in the morning With an STD and pregnant-- A disaster I avoid at all costs. But you know what happens to such people-- Oh, you have read the novels, Seen the movies: Indeed, Love found me in the end. For this chaos, this burning up of myself Ended after I found my Beloved; It was from the hell of that very last sacrificial pyre --Upon which I had poured the fuel Of half a decade's love and work Nearly killing myself for what turned out to be But cold scraps of what I'd thought Collaboration on a shared passion-project, A true partnership, even love-- That, He pulled me out of Into His incomparable arms. And even now, He is there, Right before me, His tall shape vivid and commanding Immediately recognisable Even through the rain and tears. Again, to me He beckons: Calmly, He inspects the damaged cage of my chest The tattered and savaged remains Of what had been my heart therein Saying "There, there, my child"-- And I know He can heal me As He lays his giant hand His elegant, beautiful hand Over the bleeding, gored gape. But the worst thing of all Is that this time, It's different. As He takes my eyes with His It is in them That I see Not my own face But my lost sister's reflected. For she who tore out That chunk of my heart Is not like other women: My lithe black kitten Is no mere human being I could but let drift away into the background And let her rest there in peace Until I see her again-- ("When? When?" Cries that bird in my chest Fluttering, crying out against Even the strength of His hand; In the background, The princess of a fairytale Gazes into her mirror And laments The loss of her prince, Looking for his reflection.) For she is as He is to me, For she is to me as I am to me, All three of us Of the same Substance Emanations of the same Light-Being: Us the mirrors in which He Contemplates Himself He the mirror in which we Contemplate ourselves She His left hand As I am His right: We His Shakti Bringing Him to life With our worship: We and only we The priestesses who tell people of His wonders We no more and no less Than His Re-Incarnation Upon this Earth So that He may again Live, laugh, entrance, seduce, Play, carouse, fuck, breathe, breathe. We the ones who kiss Him into life, He kissing the world in turn Through our lips: Capturing souls through His voice That, once silent and forgot, Is now again being given A sweet taste, An intoxicating fragrance, An irresistable arousal's desire-pull By nothing less than The honey of our very own sexes; Our sexes open and pink and sweet As as His hierodules, We whore Him far and wide: We and only we His very heart and its beating His blood and its rush and its singing His very prick's sweet hardening and lifting Our every breath a moan of orgasm Tossing within the throes of The Great Ravishment That is He. In short-- Prema mourns the separation Not of but two limited human beings Set apart by geography, time, duties No, nothing so mundane as this But the loss of her very own Self, Of The Divine Reality's Very own Self: As her sister walked out into the rain So did she carry away with herself Half of Prema's own heart and soul. And here, this wretch still stands Tears and rain painting with her kohl over her face A veil of mourning; For today she stands bereft of That rarest of beauties and joys: Of having been held in Love Within the living, breathing, warm embrace Of God Herself.

a bit of an all around update.