#jmasch

i don't recognize faces so when i saw you for the first time i thought you might be someone else someone whose teeth gnash in glee when i cry, whose nails dig and make me bleed apologies for things i didn't do you turned out to be a whole different kind of monster.

i don’t recognize faces

i couldn’t tell if the man who 

took me home last night was you

or someone else entirely

but i thought that i recognized you,

felt you in the way he gripped me

a little too tightly for comfort

i don’t recognize faces

it started when i was barely more

than a child, barely a person

and you struck for the first time

lesions in my occipital lobe,

a handicap that i underestimated,

thinking that at least i knew

who, exactly, you were

i don’t recognize faces

and it had been so long the second time, ages

since i heard your voice

i forgot you, but my body did not.

by the time you touched my heart

it was too late to avoid another

ii.  i had been wandering for a while, surviving off the bread i had been given, refusing to take more than what was offered to me through fair means. i could survive a while this way, i thought. then, i met the deer. he was fragile in his own way. he looked every bit the strong, masculine buck he was meant to be, all ornate antlers and powerful legs. a closer look, however, revealed the blood staining his russet coat. are you hungry? this bread was all i had to offer. he looked at me with his inscrutable gaze. i offered him the bread. all or nothing, i thought. i’ll find something to tide me over. the deer finished it quickly as my stomach began to growl. the blood on his coat began to dissipate, and he stood up on shaky newborn legs. quietly, i watched him turn back to the forest before looking at me one last time. he stepped closer to me and nudged my arm. i felt vitality rush through my body, and a basket of fruit appeared in my hand. he limped away, not quite recovered, but i had done what i could. 

iii. 

do you even know what you ask for? the druid said, standing over my battered form, my knife long discarded and made useless by the man’s servants. you have proven that you have merit, and no person with merit should be denied a companion, but why do you ask for options? one should call to you, he said. don’t be greedy.  i looked at the forms just behind the druid, the shape of my deer boy and a brighter, more colorful fey girl encased in glass. they both call to me, i replied. capricious girl, the druid sneered. perhaps you do not deserve any at all. my deer looked at me through the glass, his palm pressed against his heart, and i remembered his gift and called upon it. the same vitality i felt flowed through me and burst free, thick vines punching through the glass to free both the boy and the girl. i will take both, i said. not because i am greedy, but because i have love enough in my heart for both.

iv.

falling in love and then falling apart the inevitability of a broken heart he was the earth, home of everything i was a meteor, i was grasping for anything but you fall too hard and you fall too fast and eventually, everything you are is in the past and somehow, you’re left behind looking at the wreckage and somehow, you can’t believe you overlooked the message