so "incubus" means someone who lies on top of something, and "succubus" means someone who lies underneath something, and the former also turns up in the word "incubate", which means to lie on top of an egg. To ensure closure we could therefore posit an analogous term "succubate", which would be something like this:
Itās in my chest. Itās a bit distracting, sorry. It aches, a little.
The cottage in sleeping woods that waits for us. The one we dream of in tired innocence and wool-gathering. Seek me. Strain your ears and listen. The beating heart will guide. Come lie with me, cry with me, kiss me please for every bitter memory I canāt forget. Iāll kiss your tears and attend your weeping, the grief that rises from our soil. To face it together is sacred privilege. Confide and let poetry drape our shoulders like blankets in winter. Itās so warm here with you. Would you speak to me long into the night and tell me of all you love? Would you do it again so I can listen a little longer? Hold my hand. I hear you. I still wantā¦
Iām sorry. Itās just so warm. Itās in my ribs again. Under my skin. It feels so bright and hallowed. I carry a holy thing. It will leave a mark upon me.
The apartment. The kitchen. The sink. We wash our hands together. The water runs over our hands holding hands, washing our palms in our otherās palms, we bathe together. Cleanse each other of our loneliness and the sick oil of absence. We walk to the kitchen as one, our clean hands a fetter. Folding love into the dough and seasonings, lathering soap slowly on dishes and skin. The heat from the shower is a comfort. The sweat washes slowly from us. I take a lungful of dim light and mist. Youāre there in the steam I breathe. The tea I sip. The hands I wash. We feed each other bread and fruit. Stew and tofu. Blood and lipstick. I taste you. The taste is likeā¦
Itās so hard to focus like this, with all the smoke and sparks curling from my lips. My words are coming out less and less as breath and sound. Theyāre starting to taste like light and heat.
I am naked and fully clothed to you. You memorized my skin, my bones, my blood. We hold eyes in public and youāve undressed me a thousand times. You kiss my lips and put me in a gown of armour, black leather plate, red wool of maidenās hands āround my neck, my heart becomes a beating edge in your fingers. I am the stone and I am the sword. I am the lake that bears the blade of my beloved. A lake of tears and blood, of hands and hearts, you cradle my breath and kiss my ribs in your bedchamber. How many times will you watch the morning kiss me and wonder which was brighter? How many dusks may I gather from the garden and share like cool evening pomegranates, the stars like nothing more than seeds in our teeth? Are you finally close enough? Will you sleep soundly in my chest? I see you. I have always seenā¦
Call it out of me once again. Reach into my ribs with your tongue and pull it out with your teeth. I canāt touch it the way you do. Not with such tender lips and loving whisper. It runs deep in the blood. I offer you my neck for your gentle and ravenous way of want. Help me, please.
I touch my fingers to the painting. A sin in the eyes of my dear archivist. But I need the closeness. Across all the hours you spent, did you ever think about the love in each stroke as you did it? Were you too wrapped up in technique to see your heart pouring down the brush? You told me painting is your whole life. The way you said it to me, conviction so loud your heart was audible. I adored you and knew, knew that because this love of yours carries the cultivation of lifetimes, was touched by the grace of a thousand voices in hand-crushed dyes, your soul and your skill, she is one, her essence found in every aspect of the woman, the painting, the portrait maker. And so you painted my face. Your shaking breath touched this canvas. You brushed my skin and I, I was filled by you. I touch the painting and lean in close. The scent of creation on your neck. My hands will never forget your scent. I smell you. I smell the memories ofā¦
It doesnāt burn so bad when you touch me. My ashes, they look clean when theyāre on your hands. On your cheeks when you pull back to show me smiling eyes. In your hair, forty years from today, when we wake up together and theyāre still falling like the snow. But it never hurts. Not with you. Not a gift like this.
I walked alone for so long. My bones began to black and my breath, exhaust. Flower after flower, fed by marching, crumbling grace. My grave that walked the gardens. My name is Promethea, dear beloved of Hestia, and I have always borne this flame. How did you so easily, again and again, reach down into my chest and call the sunrise from my core? Transposed my breath of fire, wove it into a voice of light that drips with sunset gold, your hands the needle, your love the thread. You made me the Sun and asked me to keep you warm. I still yearn to kiss you with lips of cloudless noon. Iāve told you there is a divine spark in every person. Mine feels as bright as wildfire with you. The wind whipping me up to a frenzy. If the wind blows hard enough, if the air of the woods is dry enough, could I finally reach high enough to touch yours? That soft glow that gently breaks the dawn. The light that fills the sky. Iād walk forever, to live a life in that light. For it to kiss my skin and walk alongside the source. I feel you. As deep as faith, I feelā¦
It has to be you. O Lady of Aspects, of Pigments, of Sweetest Fruits, it can only ever be you. Never will another live who did for me what you have done. The first second of eternity shall pass and the gold that mends my heart will still recall the smith. You shall know no equal in my eye. I carry a holy thing. A thing of fire, of blood, of breath. The blessing of life. This is my gift to you, freely given, without condition. To be used to build your home in the arches of my ribs, where lay the softness of my breast and the pulsing of my life-rhythm; I make this my oath. I am Promethea, dear beloved of you, O Hestia, and it is my vow to know you. For to be known is to truly beā¦
