#ssprose

Fu- Forget it. I am an imbecile and you are a goddess about to bloom. You are a masterpiece and I am dried out clay. My story is finished, complete, and told. You are still being crafted. Maybe that is why I love you - I overcame my obstacles far too young and have nothing better to worry about than the fleeting years ahead.

My beautiful, illustrious friend - I admire every ounce of life pumping through you. Did you know that you are braver than me? I do not even know myself, and I have lived too long. Don’t tell me we were born months apart - you’re soul is too wonderful to grace my year. You are too wonderful to feel my cynicism and age.

Don’t tell me I am not old! I am ancient - I am dusk to dawn and the hours of missed sleep! I am decrepit and a crypt of “could have beens.” I am unworthy and imperfect. I am a skeleton of cracks and ash and gnashed teeth. You are utopia.

Let me bury myself at thy feet if I am enough of a morsel of pleasure to keep thy grounds fed. I am worth nothing outside of nourishing others. My body cares nothing for itself and never shall. But thy garden? If it should bloom and make you smile, then my grave is enough to prove this life a centerpiece. Make me fertilizer if it means I am of use to you!

I’m sitting on my friend’s back porch. I’m stoned, listening to bad music on Good Friday. One of them loads a pellet gun in case the skunk comes back.

A metal barrel of fire keeps me warm gives us dancing shadows. Is this our god tonight?

Pellet gun returns with brush for the fire. Pellet gun is put far up high and out of site. I can’t help but think about their kids tomorrow. I measure their heights against the wall - they should be fine. After all, these people have been parenting much longer than I have - I am not a parent. Compared to everyone here, I’m not an anything. I don’t know where my lover is. I don’t care.

Flame flares back to life. An arm is met for a moment with a slice of the burn - he seems fine. He gently rubs the skin to check, then looks away to continue a muddled conversation. I don’t move that fast. I’m impressed. I think about throwing my hand into the smoke just above the rim. The hungry crackles fill the night; their cat watches, amber dancing in it’s eyes.

Too many of my friends are pretty. Beautiful even. People around me are kissing or leaning into welcoming shoulders. I’m too gay to keep doing this shit. I’m jealous of the fire. I wish I could burn up like our choices.

Lately, I’ve been an alarm clock.

People wind me up, and set me off, then hurt me when I raise my voice. Sometimes I’m snoozed and interrupted, or I am reset before I’m allowed to answer the very point I was supposed to make.

Today brought me so many signals. It was overwhelming. My teeth ache from grinding into my anger and frustration. I’ve choked back the alarms, when I have every reason to scream…

Not that I want to. But stimuli causes a reaction. And the negative stimuli has been overbearing. Overwrought. Overrun. My mind has been flooded with the sticky stuff.

I’ll be fine eventually, like clockwork. I’ll get cleaned up, someone will need me, and I will be rewarded with my timeliness. Maybe they can even put me on a low volume or set me up to sing happy little tunes.

But I’ll mess up again. They’ll change my sounds to shrill blasts and forget to oil me or dust me and buy the wrong batteries or forget to help me change at the proper intervals. I’m full of rust as is. Maybe I’ll finally be tossed out. I think it’s the getting passed around that hurts. I don’t belong. And I’m not getting any fitter for this world. Just… rustier. Shriller. Older. Sadder.

Perspective of someone who has just opened their eyes in a park. Probably a famous one like Central Park. But it’s empty. When they step forward, the ground clinks like tile. Everything is very fragile ceramic and such.

They turn - the first other person they see... doesn’t seem to have a body? It’s more or less a walking Sari 🥻 coming towards them. Everything seems just like perfect movement though - like the muscles are there (and quite beautifully sculpted) but they’re invisible.

The figure looks down at their own hands - they seem to be missing, but they are wearing a delicately pressed and surprisingly soft cotton shirt with veins of silver in it.

They two talk. Suit learns that they seem to be dying. Sari leads ahead just by a pace or two. Her voice is comforting. She explains that this is something like purgatory. Or limbo. Or maybe a little more. Falling through will seal your fate - you’re one of the lucky ones.

Suit pauses. We see several cracks in the porcelain world. Pan up. Some cracks are gigantic. Wide yawning canyons like rows of teeth.

Suit turns to Sari. “What made the cracks?”

“You, mostly.” She gestures to one. “Don’t bother looking down though. Some can be worsened.”

Suit pauses in their step, turns back. “Looking down the cracks?”

Sari’s shoulders shrug. “Bad things there. You’ve filled the world with regrets, worries, and even pain. Each crack shows how bad the memory is.”

Suit slowly (ever so carefully) sits down. “Oh... I see. Remembering can make them grow more... like guilt.”

Sari “that’s not inaccurate. Sometimes you fix them though.”

Suit’s shoulders indicate them turning. “How so?”

“Sometimes you live a better life. Or you sacrifice it for someone else. You love, you care, you vouch for someone honorable... Or you create art. Art has always been a redeeming quality of mankind.”

Suit’s arms raise as if to cover their face. “That’s... I feel like that was a compliment, but I just don’t understand.”

“Do you remember the Three Muskateers? You wrote it once.”

“What?”

“What was their saying?”

Suit bows his head. “All for one, and one for all.”

“Life is sort of like that. You come back a few times. Either until you fix your world, or tear it apart.” Suit skitters away a step, before hearing the scrape of it, and stopping. “I know this is a lot to take in. We have time though...

They talk for some time. Suit loosens up a little. “Well... if that is who I am and who I have been... who are you?”

Sari appears to relax and play with a piece of fabric a moment. “I guess I’m your muse? Maybe I’m just a piece of the universe. Or your conscience maybe? I’ve been here all along and watching.”

“That’s rather embarrassing.”

Sari sighs. “I will be here to take ‘you’ to your next ‘stage.’ That is all.”

“Wait, will be here? You’re here now. Am I not dying?”

“Not... yet. I suppose you move on to the next part now. You usually forget this scene when you come back.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“You move on now. We keep moving on until your world is fixed or dust. You have work to do... You’re having another transition, but it is not your final death.”

“Can anything keep me from going back?”

“I suppose if you are forgotten, yes.”

“... Forgotten?”

“Indeed. Sometimes it takes only a few years. Sometimes centuries. But if you are forgotten before you decide to go back... you don’t get to go back.”

“How long can I stay here?”

“As long as you need. You usually go after a day or two. Your record is 73 days. I think others like me end up waiting much longer.”

Suit stands. “Last question. I know I may forget... You said this is purgatory or limbo, but this isn’t the final life. What does that make my... living... life?”

“A different kind of limbo, I suppose.”

Suit crosses their arms, looks down at their flat brown and russet wingtips. They couldn’t remember if they’d put on these shoes or not. These questions didn’t gave comfort or knowledge. It was time to go. “I’m ready.”

“Ah. Record timing on the opposite of the spectrum.

I am not one to process emotions well or quickly or consistently. I don't like a lot of stimuli, yet I cannot handle stagnation or a colorless, tasteless moment. I'm so sorry I am hard to love sometimes; I struggle to understand what I am supposed to feel and do. I am committed to being truthful to myself and to you, and sometimes that means admitting I want to dig my fangs into you. I feel untamed, feral, and cornered when I try to love you. I do not understand how to be a doll or a delicate flower or an enchanting melody. I only understand narrowed eyes, stiff lips, and the cool air of your breath on my neck if I turn my back on you.

I love you in the way a lion is not the strongest, fastest, or smartest beast, but is one a widely respected predator nonetheless. I love you in the way it is dangerous for a water buffalo to cross deep rivers, but still strides in because of instinct and need. I love you in the way a pack of wolves keeps its strongest members at the back when traveling, so the weak are not left behind.

Human blood has salt in it, and it flows through our veins in currents. We breath in a rythm, and when it's loud enough, it echoes the push and pull of the tide. Our eyes sparkle like sunlight hitting waves or sand dunes or damp shells left turned over on the beach. We are 70% or more water? No, we are 70% or more ocean.

I try so very hard not to be a wolf, but I am in sheep's clothing. My fangs dig into my tongue so often that blood does not excite my senses. My lips are mess of broken skin and scars, and people always seem to be looking me in the eye. Am I so untrustworthy that they must peer into me? Must I be so analyzed for trying to be peaceful?

My deepest cravings are not of metallic blood or anger or even the excitement of a hunt. I do not wish to one way expose my true nature and be deemed quite the fiendish actress. I am not prizing my wits or disguises. I just want to be safe.

I know I am of no flock or herd or pack of my own. Yet, my fur is so easily shed and changed, I can be among anyone who will have me. I just beg everyone to not look too closely or to challenge my identity. I could be made of straw or gears, for all I know.

The worst part is knowing something but not enough. I fear what I am capable of, but know not the extent to which I could destroy everything. If I have claws, I dare not look at them when I clip them - ehat if they're longer than I imagine?

What sort of feral beast cannot live as its self? What monster is consumed with wondering what is right or wrong then hides from the question? I have never heard of an animal who dulled it's fangs because it worried its instincts could be wrong - yet, here we are.

There will be no cinematic gaze into a pool that reveals my true nature. I can only decide that for myself and actively deny my horrible thirsts. I am every bit the creature I fear I am, but that does not mean anyone else should have reason to fear me. I am a full and domesticated thing, afraid of talents and talons both.

This is how my brain works. I tangle branches and stories together, and flit around them, never settling long. I make lovely little dreamer's nests, places to settle and escape to: places where I choose who interrupts me and who can not touch my gladness. Each story is kept within a synapse, and each synapse is a tangle of branches - covered in leaves, covered in possible paths.

I hear of the imaginative possibilities of the world and the sciences we dig into. I read today that they think they've found a universe showing our time running backwards. I cannot comprehend this, but I imagine what accidents could come of this. I travel among my branches, making horror stories and fantasies alike. What if this is our demise? What if this is the unknown power we glimpse when we die, as our lives pass over our closing eyes? What if this is a mistake, because we cannot design perfect machines and cannot comprehend the actual truth it shows?

I hide away in a nest, clinging to it to stop my reeling. Then my head takes over, wrapping me in layers of detail to keep me safe. I see walls, of soft lemon yellows and linen white, painting themselves into delicate, intricate patterns. I see pictures hang themselves, arranged in aesthetic groups of odd numbers. Vines and plants come next - as they are always early in the process.

This nest has a bay window to lounge at, with white painted cabinets beneath, which I instinctively know are filled with painting supplies. I sit, watching the trees sprout, soon towering about the quint house, their roots deep and their branches spread wide. Warm sunlight pours in, streaking the pale wood and brightly colored carpets with amber warmth. The gardens start appearing - both those outside the window, creeping up to the edge of glass, as the vined plants inside spread over the lounging area, carefully curled around corners and a mighty fine bookshelf.

This version of me is a soft little escape artist, as most of the versions are. She slips away from the window, breezily picking out a book after only a glance at the shelves - revealing to my mind that many of these books have worn fingerprints of my size. She takes a seat almost before my imagination can finish filling in a dark grey and light blue couch - the kind you see in old cabins, where things were carved by hand. The wooden backing and legs of the seat groan with my weight, and the cushion shapes to me as if I'm the only one who has ever sat in it. A cup of tea appears, precariously balanced on thin air before a sone coffee table appears beneath it. I admire its mosaiced top - many shades of blue and off-white, layered to be reminiscent of a lake or seashore.