The Last Time

The last time I saw her she was standing in the doorway of that derelict building with her high heels and stockings in her hand, the gun in her other hand and the rest of them dead at her feet. The light spilled from the doorway behind her illuminating her form into a sharply defined silhouette. Even as she picked her way through the pools of blood, careful not to splash any onto herself, she maintained her feminine poise. Each footfall carefully planned to sway her hips with delicate hypnotizing ease. I could not stop starring. I desperately wanted to tear my eyes away to survey the carnage at her feet but I could only see her.

She lifted her hand and pressed her finger to her lips, mouthing "shhhhh," as if the dead men on the floor were only sleeping and we dare not wake them. Each of her footsteps made no sound even on the creaking ancient pine floor; like she was a cat with silent bird-stalking paws. The gun in her hand stood out in stark hardness to her inherent softness; the gentle roundness of her hips, the sloping curve of her shoulder, the delicate bow of her lips and her fingers curled around that hardened steel. The gun seemed to be a man-made abomination to her organic movements and illuminated skin. The precision with which she wielded it, however, and the ease with which she now slung it into her waistband, unnerved me. I started to shake ever so slightly with the horror of it, but still I could not take my eyes off of her.

She glided down the steps of that house, now tomb, and covered the distance on the rocky ground in her bare feet as if she was moving with the currents of air. The wind seemed to shift around me as she neared. I could smell her faint floral perfume mixed with the metallic scent of blood and gunpowder as she picked up her skirt to avoid dragging it in the dust. I saw the glimpse of her shapely leg which I knew would feel like silk if I were to trace my hand up her thigh to the lace panties she wore. I glanced at the dead men who had saw the same flash of flesh. They would never touch her.

She now stood in front of me; not a single droplet of blood on her carefully arranged outfit, no shards of bone in her meticulously styled hair, she hadn't even smudged her eyeliner with the exertion of what she had done. She lay her hands upon my face and then slipped her arms slowly around my neck. She held my gaze steadily as she pressed her body so close to mine that I could feel her breath through her ribs. I traced my hands down her spine until I hit the cold lump of metal in the small of her back. Before I could think of that instrument of death and her ability to play it like a harp of destruction, she pressed her lips to mine and darted her tongue into my mouth.

Soon my vision clouded with the halo of her perfume and sweet breathe expanding my chest like it was the only thing keeping me alive. I sunk into her arms and drank her kiss like I was dieing of thirst in a deep hot desert. I laced my fingers into her hair and drew her closer to me; hungry now for her taste. When she drew her mouth away from mine, she slipped her hand down my arm and grasped my wrist...

"Come on," she whispered, "it's time we left..."

The Hanged Man

I found his body hanging in a grove of pine trees as the light filtered down from the wooded canopy deep in the dense forest far outside town. He had tightened the noose around his neck and jumped from the highest branch that would not snap under his weight. He was a dedicated man to the end. Had the branch been too thin or the rope too loose, he would have crashed to the ground bruised and shaken but alive.

That would simply not do.

He had bought strong rope and tied the noose carefully. He had chosen a sturdy tree with thick ancient branches that had probably supported generations of black bears climbing its limbs to reach the honeybee hives at the top. This would be done right, a quick short 'snap!' No lingering, gasping death at the bottom of a bottle of pills, no messy gun blowing out the back of his head for someone else to clean up, no bloated drowned corpse washing up outside the tallest bridge in town; only a quick clean death would do.

Why he picked such a remote location I've never been sure. Maybe he simply wanted his body to never be found. To erase his existence off the face of the earth; hoping that no one would remember he was ever here. Wiping their memories clean of his fastidious but pointless life. Even for the event of his own death, he wore a carefully pressed suit with a equally carefully knotted tie and carefully shined shoes. I think he was a careful man in life and thus planned his death with equal attention to detail.

I sat among the sun dappled pine needles and woodland grass and stared into his glassy eyes. The dead hold more truth than the living ever will. I lifted my eyes to heaven and let the drifting clouds fill my vision. I felt the late summer sun dance over my face. The wind carried the gentle rustling of rush weeds and the twittering of small brown sparrows hunting for beetles in the thorn bushes. A small stream babbled a gurgling song near by and crickets chirped a chorus of longing across the fields.

I stood and turned to walk away. When I looked back his mouth fell open and a mass of shiny newly born black flies flicked their wings open for the first time and took flight into the sweltering swarming heat.

I was right. There is no more truth than this. With that parting thought, I put one foot in front of the other and walked back home.

"Then later on that day about a quarter mile out of town,
I found his body hanging in a grove of pines, swaying in the wind.
And as he swang that rope sang another hymn to Jesus,
And this time though I don't know why,
I somehow felt inclined to sing along." Still Waters, Jim White

Run From My God

Your face is bleeding. The blood thick and shiny like red pomegranate juice running down your cheek and painting your lips like a perverse rouge. Your tears have mixed with the blood as you fold in half and collapse onto the platform. You were right; you knew this is where you would fall with all these glassy-eyed hordes looking on in vague horror. You were right.

Only I would bend down to clean the fear off of you face and close up the wounds. You, however, would not let me touch you. Held your hands up over your face and screamed. Closed your eyes like looking upon my face was looking upon the sun. Like you were breathing in my hair and it was fire. Like I would burn you if I touched your bare skin. You screamed, "You are the dawn! I saw you creeping over the horizon and I have feared and hated you! I will run from your blinding god! Your shining face of god..."

I am not of the treacherous sex but I think you believe I am. Why else would you not let me brush the blood from you eyes and cradle you in my arms? I could stop this but you will not let me. I could drive these hordes away. Force them from the circle they have formed around you to hold you here. They enjoy watching you bleed. Licking their lips for a taste you; they are going to consume you if you turn your back to them. These are sharped-teethed devours hiding in the crowd; circling for a chance to strike. To lick that blood from you forehead until you can no longer move. This is a trap.

If you will not let me touch you I have no choice. I have no choice but to walk away. To leave you in the hands of these giggling psychopaths who will stroke your hair, whisper sweet sugar into your ears, kiss your eyes and drive their fists into your chest searching for your heart. I could have stopped this but now have no choice but to walk into this dawn of my god and become the fire that lights the world with the shining eyes of my soundless devotion to your salvation. I have no choice.

Without Language

Without a tongue I have swallowed the void; I have suffered without language. Unending mute in the face of chattering gods. They tell me, "We know the truth; we saw what happened; we have seen all and judged you for it. Open you lips and accept our offering..."

Twit. Twit. Jug. Jug. So rudely forced.

For him I have no name; can not open my mouth and let his sin fall out. Though I have seen his flesh they do not believe me. "We judge you guilty." Was it my fault I lost my tongue? So rudely forced.

He took my hands. I have no written language to scrawl his incantations and guilt. See no evil and it does not exist. He covered my eyes to preserve his goodness. Twit. Twit. Jug. Jug.

The blood on my lips should be enough to whisper my story to these armies of just men but as I turn to them I can see they have cut their own eyes out. "We know you are guilty. We do not need to see. We can smell your anger and have judged you for it. Lay down and accept our offering..."

Father, destroy these men for me. I can no longer bear this wordless growing chasm of shame. I will take my own life to silence the twittering in my ears of his greasy fingered violation. He took my tongue, lopped off my hands but left me my cursed eyes to see the pain and revulsion at this maiden so rudely forced. Make them pay for my suffering and their ignorance, father. Make them pay for my death.

Twit. Twit. Jug. Jug. Old demon, I am so rudely forced and have judged you for it.

A Mutilation

My hips are riding higher and your fingers are gliding closer to the milky crescent of skin. You run your delicate fingertips over creamy white scar tissue quickly followed by your tongue. I am mutilator inside this body cradled against you; you cry at each scar you caused. A lifetime is traced out in every faded wound; every memory we have is etched here like a epic poem written in blood and flesh.

You say, "I remember this one. You screamed at me all night long and broke a glass against the kitchen floor. What were we fighting about? I can't remember."

Was it violet light that sparked my anger? Was I so caught up in my own mind that I slashed my arm with no understanding of what that would mean? Did the blood dripping down my hand keep my alive? I can't remember.

You slide your lips over each hard tissued-memory and mumble apologies against my skin. The scars hum at your touch; spark blunted emotions and jagged delusions inside my taxidermied heart. Have these scars reached my eyes; can you see this violence seeping out as I hold you against me? Is my love cast in violet light as my anger is?

Hold me tight against you so these scars can flow between us. They will start to inch from my skin to your skin and we will be like a marred monument to our own lives. Though our love is flawed it is ours to keep in this house of lover's mutilation wrapped in each others warm bodies and unending in our destructive devotion.

Drowning Days

You have that slow-drowning feeling to you. I can feel your fingers around my ankles and you are pulling me down under perfectly calm blue-green waters. Wrapping yourself around me like seaweed; a slow wet hug squeezing the air out of my lungs. Replacing it with silken fluid.

You can breathe down here. You can open your mouth and let the water flood in. You live on the tiny microbes filling your belly. Feed on their brief lives and snuff them out with your constant hunger. Your eyes illuminate from the inside out so you can see in the darkest depths. Your skin has turned to scales in these ebbing tides.

I, however, am drowning in your sweetness. You are whispering "Ophelia" in my ear; over and over and over again. I can feel petticoats growing heavy around me; these delicate chains of blue flowers twisting in my fingers. I stare at the too clear sky and feel the water lapping at my cheeks. "Ophelia... Ophelia... He is crushing your heart; pulling you down. Can you not see his insanity bringing you to sandy ocean floors and rocky river bottoms? Your body will flow over miles and miles of sunken civilizations forever immortalized in sailors' hoarse-throated songs. You can not breathe water like air, girl..."

These ebbing tides that keep you alive with movement will eventually wash my body ashore. My mouth full of pearls; my eyes covered over in scales. Your marshy touch will dress my body in cat-tails and swamp bugs; little brightly coloured fish will dart from my heart to my lungs. Seabirds will nest in my hair in the filmy half light from deep unexplored pools. I have become the shipwreck of your soul.

Good night, sweet ladies.
Good night.
Good night.

Scenes from Ice

Cool moonlight casts through the window; this bed becomes a frozen tundra. We are each occupying a separate border land with all this empty space between us. It is too much for either of us to transverse; my hand will not dart out from under the covers to find yours. You have locked your wrists together over your heart and turned your back on me. The curve of your shoulder used to captivate me but now it only provokes me to silent sobbing as I choke down my feelings for you.

You once whispered to me all your sweet futures upon these sheets lying next to me night after night. Your voice was like a vision of deep blue warm pools washing over me in waves; gently lapping at my mind until I fell into quiet slumber in your arms. You held me tightly in the tepid midnight air murmuring melodically in my ear. My dreams turned to sugar at your voice as I drifted in and out of this warm room.

The stars have come out now and cast the room in chilly darkness. I can see your features as ice in arctic temperatures; my breath turning to crystals as it falls upon the pillow. Your form is now frozen in my pain; the whole world has become snow around me. I am caught here, trapped between this tower of ice and your anger. I have grown so very very cold and I fear nothing shall ever warm me again.

This tundra grows and stretches the distance between us. I can see you getting smaller as you pull away from me on this continental drift. The ice has finally reached your eyes and I know your heart has turned to a cold lump of meat and frozen tissue. It has lost its animation, its ability to move and beat, as you have lost your love for me. I have not changed for I am trapped here but you... even cast in ice, you have completely warped yourself into a state of inertia.

In this frozen wasteland, I turn my back on you and search for a spark to burn the fucking room down...