You’re a sin-eater who feeds on the guilty consciousness of those around you to sustain yourself. Despite having lived for more than a millennium you’ve never met anyone free of guilt. Until you stumble across a young couple who are both guilt free, but for drastically different reasons.
“Come sit,” the girl says, scooching closer to the other girl on the weather-worn bench.
I tuck my nose into the collar of my jacket, tuck my gloved hands into the too-large pockets. “No thanks,” I say as the other girl giggles and grabs at her hand.
“Come on,” she says, staring up at me with pale eyes, pale hair. Her lips were folded into a pout. “Sit down! You never talk to us anymore.”
Autumn hung like heavy dewdrops in the moving air, resplendent and bright and ever-changing with each passing breeze. “Hey,” I say, watching as the wind tried to toss their white-black hair into a singular grey, teasingly lifted the hems of their billowing skirts. "I’m a busy guy.” Already there was the bite of cold in the air, but they didn’t seem to mind in their bare legs, bare arms, wrapped up in their flimsy summer clothes and in their love for each other.
I didn’t need to be a... a love-eater in order to see it. All their open glances, all the bright smiles that they directed at each other even as they talked to me. The way their small hands folded together so casual and perfect like this was right, like their love was an immutable truth of the world. The way their chests were turned towards each other, toes pointed at the other’s feet. I couldn’t taste it, but I know. They displayed it so openly, so drastically to the world. It almost seemed like a challenge for anyone to question how enraptured they were in each other. Maybe it was. Maybe they were just so caught up in the bliss of each other’s presence that they didn’t care about what the world thought.
“Busy doing what?” The second girl asked, flushed lips curved into a smirk. “Too busy to talk to old friends?”
You’re not my friends, I thought but didn’t say, hands curling within the threadbare lining of my old army jacket. “Just the same old,” I mumble, turning my face away. I knew better than to talk back to them. They were not beings who were capable of anger. At least, anger of such a mundane degree to all these slight, mortal dalliances. I have lived for longer than most people can conceive and they have lived longer, but still, it was not fear that stayed my tongue.
Apprehension, maybe. They were so full and vivacious against the backdrop of the world but they have always disquieted me. Other people walk past us in the park, children and couples and groups of friends out to enjoy the brisk air, and I hear the whispers of their past mistakes, see the shape of all their what-ifs and if-onlys. I feed off the wisps, ease some of the guilt that plagues the back of their minds and they return home a little calmer. If I were to sit down with another, I could do more. Dig my hands into the meat of their regret, feel all the irregular curves that make up the surface of their conscience. I could smooth it all out, take it all in. Dip into their head and bandage up their weeping sores.
I wouldn’t be able to do it to them. I can’t. They sit before me, so bright and full of love, but to me they seem empty. There are few who have lived longer than I, but I can’t count them among that number even as their years stretch back further than I can comprehend. And guilt is a familiar emotion to me, but I don’t feel guilty about not counting them among the living. I’m not sure that they do, either.
"What a shame,” cooed the dark-eyed girl as she ran her fingers through the light hair of her companion. “I guess we shouldn’t keep you, then. We are being rude, aren’t we, Irina?”
“Mmhmm,” she agreed, resting her head on the other girl’s shoulder. “Fine! Some other time! You owe us a coffee, mister.”
Irina? I almost laughed. I couldn’t think of a name that was more or less fitting. “Yeah, sure,” I say, with no intention to follow through. “Uh, before I go, just - what are you two doing here, anyway?”
Irina’s pink lips turned up in a smile, the picture of innocence, the picture of youth. “Our jobs,” she said dreamily. “Just like you.”
I keep waiting for humanity to realize that youth did not equate to gentle and kind. Gentleness cannot be cultured in naivety. Kindness must be learned. So quick could all that hazy softness turn to something cruel and hard. I was lucky to not catch her in a more whimsical mood.
“Quite,” the other girl murmured, pressing a kiss into pale hair with naked red-flushed lips. “As you do your duty, so must we do ours.”
The shiver that crawls down my back has nothing to do with the mid-autumn air. I turn and walk away. Life and Death wear their guise at every corner of the globe, giving and taking in tandem. A glimpse of a stranger from the corner of your eye before a car crashes into you and punctures your lungs. A little boy saying “sorry, ma’am,” as he picks up the frisbee that narrowly missed your pregnant belly. Vague, fleeting impressions that linger at the edge of your memory, the soft press of foreign comfort as you fade from the world.
I glance back, see them chatting animatedly with a new couple and cooing over what’s in their stroller. They had only ever flitted in and out of humanity before. Only ever given me glances and smiles as I passed them and froze at what I couldn’t sense. Certainly, they had never talked to me, never talked to anyone aside from each other.
Death looks up and smiles at me, and I turn away, hurrying my pace. Maybe it’s time to relocate.
That’s how it usually goes, isn’t it. Daddy always told me to stay away from boys like you, to keep my head down and stay out of trouble. Pardon me, mister, but daddy didn’t tell me shit. But daddy was much too wrapped up in his lonesome fog to care. Sad, isn’t it? A tragedy waiting for a catalyst. But here’s a secret for you: daddy never told me to stay away from boys like you, never told me to keep my head down and bite my lip and turn the other way. But who cares about him. Who cares about daddy. Who cares when the world is at my fingertips, when there are more stories than just his to tell.
Call it daddy issues. Call it what you will. Did your mommy tell you to be careful with those hands, careful with that mouth, careful where you point that smile? Did your daddy tell you to stay away from girls like me? If you’re the king of disaster then I’m the queen of pain, but that’s not exactly true, is it. But hearts are so easy to break yet so hard to crack, and you’re a knife and I’m a puzzle, and which is easier to solve? Here’s another secret, little prophet: knives are made of sheets, not edges, and only cut where they meet. Silly boy, sharp-edged boy dancing on the edge of shadows, fancying yourself a god. To think that I may only perch where I’ll be cut.
My friends and I, we're cautious with each other. Always asking before doing, always saying before taking. And sometimes I wish we weren't. Sometimes I wish we were, you know. Fun. Spontaneous. That we needn't check and double check every trivial thing, that we could play harmless pranks on each other without a second thought. But is it really harmless when surprise makes us choke up, when anxiety gnaws like a hungry hound at every unknown. What right do I have to crave reckless abandon when I still don't know how family feels, when I should feel empty but there is no hole in my gnarled, twisted insides to fill.
I guess what I mean is, home is an oxymoron, and safety is a warning. Years ago, we'd roam in packs, converging then dispersing then converging again like scattered magnets. There are certain stereotypes applied to groups of rowdy teenagers. We knew how we looked. We didn't care. Any excuse to cling to each other like tangled burrs, any excuse to stay out late and pretend that tomorrow wouldn't come. I guess what I mean is, years and decades of thrown words and cold shoulders and hidden warmth made us cautious, or angry, or unable to tell when which is which.
I guess what I mean is, maybe it's not I want us to be reckless and impulsive, but I wish we could be. I wish our caution was a choice. From the outside we may look boring, reticent, but there is a maelstrom in every single one of us and we are all so desperate to keep them in. When a dropped pen or tired look or the wrong word may be enough to make a storm out of you, maybe it's easy to see why we're so careful about every word we say, everything we do, checking and double-checking and triple-checking that you're not mad at me, no, really, are you sure, are you positive, I can still make it up to you. I don't know their triggers. I barely know mine. Who knows what will set us off.
Starlight shouldn’t burn, but on her it looks like it should. On her, everything looks like it should hurt. Or, no, everything looks like it could hurt, like she could turn her own love into a blade. She says that she’s a weapon. Says that all she does is hurt, and it should be a confession but under the bright fluorescent sunrise it seems more like temptation. She should be cold. Should be made of metal for all her lovely, decadent sins, but her words are tinged with gold and every burst of wild laughter jolts like a lightning crack. Girls like her are wreathed in shadows, nocturnal creatures that are more promise than people. Wraiths of the night, ghosts of another’s past, but she is so real it almost hurts. It doesn’t hurt to touch her soft skin. Doesn’t hurt to follow her meandering steps, but oh, she shines so brightly that everything fades under her light, that she would burn out the eyes of anyone who looked at her too long.
Isn’t that the truth of it, though. She may be a weapon, but weapons must be used. But swords by themselves are just fire-molded metal. Starlight touches her like fire, sharpens her blade to gleaming silver. I am best at what I do, and it sounds like a challenge. Sounds more like are you good enough, or come try me. She calls herself a weapon, and what she means is, I am free. What she means is, I could be yours. What she means is, I am a weapon, and I have been sheathed for so long, and my teeth are aching to bite.
it is not their rules that keep you bound, but yours. sorry, you say. sorry, sorry. always folding smaller and smaller and smaller, breaking your bones so you may fit in the right mold. you were born with the blood of kings, but it feels more like a curse, doesn’t it. if you are a dragon, your voice shakes with every roar until you eventually stop trying. until you turn your back to the crowd, try to ignore the stares that weigh on your back like shackles chaining you to the throne. some were born great. some achieve greatness. some have the crown thrust upon them and it weights like iron, heavy as death. how easy for even appeasement to seem like a weapon. how quickly your weapons turn against you. they call you coy, then call you cold. skittish fawn, flighty doe, running from the slavering mouths of hounds. so many brag of taming you, and you wonder how when there is nothing to tame, when you are but a wisp of faded smoke. what is there to claim. what is there to want.
She tastes like honey when you kiss her. Isn’t that such a cliché thing to say. Tastes like honey. Tastes sweet. Tastes like a forbidden desire, if you only counted what she forbade yourself. She’s an angel, maybe, and every day you watch her shrink smaller and smaller under the weight of her wings, watch her blanch and pale under her halo. Angels are beastly things. Ferocious beings brimming with light and fire. She looks so small. She seems so tired. You try to give her light. Try to give her space. She waters her garden, and you wish it would be so easy for her to grow. Did you know, honey suffocates whatever tries to grow in it. That we think of it as sticky sap, but given enough time it will granulate and turn solid. Did you know, honey is a humectant. It traps water and doesn’t let it go. Maybe that’s why she never cries anymore. Did you know, the human body is made of 70% water. Our blood is salt, our sweat is salt, our tears are salt. Did you know, we’re not meant to taste sweet. She tastes like honey when you kiss her, and it tastes wrong. Tastes off. Tastes like something forbidden, like her blood coagulating in her veins, like she is telling you a secret that you don’t know how to keep. You give her space. You give her time. You watch as every liquid part of her dries out. You kiss her and she tastes too sweet, and you pray that you can save her.
hungry, eyes green,
searching for the vagrancies of vacancy,
blunt-tipped fangs and black-tipped nails from all the bridges you’ve built and burnt.
you say, I don’t care if I’m the villain.
I say, I know,
watching as you fade and fade within your smoke.
you say, wouldn’t it be nice to know what’s real,
eyes alight and filled with fire.
hungry boy, lonely boy,
clawing for omens in cigarette ash,
dusty hair and dirt-streaked cheeks and soot in the place of sweat.
you want to be marble but you feel like clay,
like every unanswered prayer lost among the palace of the gods.
no wonder you feel like stone when I hold you,
no wonder you taste like charcoal,
black streaks left on my polished skin.
you want to be fire
want to be light
but you are what burns instead,
and still you hold dynamite in your trembling hands.
someday,
you say,
to my breath and to my skin but not to me,
someday I will be king.
someday you will hold the kingdom of the gods in your hands,
paint the sky red from all your warnings,
be the first and final herald of judgement day.
someday your blood will run blue
and the air will not steam as you preach your only sermon.
cold eyes, cold heart,
cold skin stained grey by every forgotten word you think but do not say.
someday, you will be king,
and I will want for nothing under your rule.
I hold your trembling hands in mine
say nothing as I trace your words against your palm.
you cannot rule without want,
I think but do not say.
cannot conquer without war,
cannot win without robbing another of the same spot.
cold porcelain boy
with your paper heart and marble crown—
how does your neck not bend under the weight of all you want.
fragile boy,
foolish boy,
you were not born this cold.
you were not born to yearn for what you can’t have,
to preach of a word that you know not.
okay, I say,
fire-warm breath hot against your skin.
your fingers skim my lips
open fissures against my skin.
I breathe out –
feel them crack ever wider under the furnace of my breath.
if you are winter, then I am light
if you are ice, then I am spring
if you are my world,
I am your north star
and you will always find your heart pointing back to me.
foolish boy,
broken boy,
always looking further than you can reach.
you only know how to want,
only know how to take.
you see yourself a martyr,
but here’s a secret for you, my hungry saint:
prophets cannot preach without a god
and your hands can only hold so much.
beastly boy,
it is not so bad to be tamed.
so you want to be a prophet.
when you are king, I will be standing beside you
not as your queen–
but as your god.
shadow trailing like a dark cloak
windswept wings yanked back by the bitter breeze
by your desperate hands reaching for
immaterial darkness slipping through your fingers
.
tarry feathers dripping down his turned back
down the hard beach and
pooling in the shadows and crevices of jagged rocks
breadcrumbs for you to follow
snatched away by the ever-present wind
.
empty hands
empty heart
there is nothing holy about him
nothing holy about you
.
nothing in him that you should want
nothing in you that he would need
.
if only
he thinks
sitting on the tallest crag
firecracker with the shortest fuse
never-ending well of gas
burning, always burning
needles under her skin glowing white-hot.
did you think it was a mask?
illusion pulled over her soft heart?
ha.
fuck that.
fuck you.
plunge your hands into my veins
past hissing lava and cactus spines and
still you'll cut yourself on my bones.
ash on my skin and
sparks on my teeth -
and you
biting into my skin with blunt-tipped fangs
still with the audacity to look surprised when you recoil with
needles in your mouth.
as if I am ever soft.
as if sparks and poison are only ever laid around a soft heart.
no -
they must come from somewhere
and here I am
packed with gunpowder and
laced with tinder and
already lit and ready to go off.
you think you can make me soft?
think you can tame this beast and have her eating out of your hand?
come try me.
say you want a lover -
smoke-kissed creature of the night
wrapped in the shadows of unlit alleyways;
ash always burning in their dark eyes.
say you want a thrill-seeker
a lover not afraid to let loose and have fun
laughing under strobe lights and pounding bass as they dance on sticky floors.
mouth always curved
and fingers too -
hand out and beckoning as they pull you into the crowded throng.
say this:
find me a troublesome lover
mood as whimsical and ever-changing as the wind.
a maelstrom, a wildcard
here then gone,
laughing wraith flitting in and out of your life with nary a care.
never a dull moment with a quarrelsome lover -
mouth of knives and
nails stained red
rubble licking at their heels.
blood-drenched angel
heavenly thing -
beastly eyes, beastly mouth
halo wrapped in hungry flame.
say you want a firestorm -
a pyre already set aflame
and they, burning, burning,
chest heaving in a laugh or a scream.
say you want a lover incandescent
immoral
immortal
steel-edged nails digging into the bones of your chest.
say you want a monster for a lover.
what a dream it is
to love -
sunshine flowing through my heart,
honey crawling through my blood.
but me -
nocturnal being wreathed in dark flame;
black bones and charred skin burning,
always burning beneath your light.
this is my confession.
I like you when you’re bubbly sweet,
powdered sugar on your lips and
saccharin dripping from your mouth.
I love you when you’re set alight
soft edges pushed aside by broken glass-
alight in incandescent rage and
sunshine fueling a searing flame.
music in her laughter
in the way she moves and twists like a river and you -
a pebble swept along by the current.
so easy to get lost in her presence
lost in her starlit eyes and
windswept smile
and think:
she is who I will follow
so easy
too easy
but be warned:
you are not the only pebble bouncing in her path
and she is a force
a surging river roaring through life
always charging forward
never looking back
no heed to those dragged into her wake
you are not the only pebble
and she is a force of nature
and even diamonds may be ground to dust in time.
breathe your fill of dusty air -
sunshine spilling past your teeth and striking
dark hair, false flames,
halo flaring red behind my head.
but it’s you;
your spark, your light,
your prayers like shooting stars
burning in the air between
our mouths.
ash and dust falling;
mini tornadoes stirred by your soft breath
leash made of kept promises
wrapped around my wrist.
needle flashing
thread snapping on the last back stitch,
hemmed edges biting into my veins.
collar wrapped around your unmarked throat -
so still as I stitched above soft skin
steady hands never touching your still-moving neck.
you to me, or me to you
thick cloth in an unbroken line to
my weak hands, your strong spine
no clasp over your vertebrae.
I let go
and still you stay
pressing forth into my space.
flames in your heart, stars in your mouth
sparks in the air -
so tender as you dust off my ruin
and still your touch burns.
split you down to the quick and it will be my blood they find in your bones
half-truths resting sticky-sweet at the back of my throat, viscous honey and cloying perfume hard on my tongue. swallow. swallow. swallow. black tar down my esophagus, barbs scratching at my flesh, blood and saliva and stomach acid reaching for my lungs. false, it screams, false, false. the truth the cleanse you. the truth will set you free. let me out, let me out, let me out.
here is the truth, then.
the truth is there never were any chains. I held his hand every step of the way, gripped his chapped palms like they were my lifeline. as if it was only him at fault, as if I were the innocent victim. when he pulled the wool over my eyes, I sat still and let him.
the truth is it was me who found the key, me who slipped it into the lock. he pushed, I pulled, he ran, I chased, he breathed against my mouth and I pulled away laughing with his scent on my teeth. follow me, follow me, always go where I lead, and he swayed after me like a snake entranced. I held his heart in my hand, warm and solid and bare, black ink dripping down my wrist with each pulse. I held it and I was strong and he was marked and leashed and mine and I wouldn’t have given it back if he’d asked.
the truth is it was me who opened the abyss. my wish is his command, my words the only gospel he followed. he didn’t push me over the edge. I didn’t push him, either. I didn’t have to. go on, I said, go on, and he willingly took the plunge.
the truth is I hurt. I am all vicious claws and sharp angles and you cannot touch me without drawing blood. I hurt loved ones and enemies and innocent passerbys who flit in and out of my world. there is no part of me that’s smooth and blunt, no part of me that is safe to handle. I am a knife digging into your ribs. I am a needle jabbing into your veins. I am an edge so thin and sharp that I bypass your nerves, bypass your defenses, and you won’t feel me biting into your bones until they break. all of me is a warning, danger ingrained in every cell. come try me, and they come in droves, driving themselves against my spikes. the dirt I pick out from under my fingernails always comes from someone else’s skin.
the truth is I clung to him, held him by his heart and his wrists as he dangled over the precipice. half and half, two as one, mind and limbs tangled together so tight that it was impossible to pull free. two bodies, two minds, and no one knew who led who anymore. I held him up, arms straining as both of us tore, poison falling from our veins, and it was our ruin that shook the land. his skin and sweat slipped through my fingers and it was I who let go.
the truth is, to break one is to break two, and he is just as bad as me.
beauty in the eye of the beholder
shattered wrists//shattered mouth
shattered soul made of a million dust motes
ball lightning strung up like fairy lights
maelstrom
inferno
fire burning - flames licking - embers falling
bright bright bright
hungry sparks reaching out to hungry hearts
dead grass; dead trees; dead eyes
empty
aching
arms open wide -
-
fill me
lay your ruin within my soul
cold hills
empty skies
hoarfrost deep within the land
there is nothing here for you to burn
(frostbite easing from my limbs
numbness
pain
atrophied nerves shaking in warm air
frozen rivers thaw under their new sun)
