driven through by her own sword

sharkbite

honeymoonred:

I opened my eyes and kissed the inside of your wrist before my vision cleared, before I took the first waking breath of the day. Purple veins, warm pulse. I am always so sad waking up. Tree branches scraped the window, and I felt tiny and full of dread as if it were the first day of school. No, I’m grown up now, there is a man in my bed, it’s Sunday.

 

Always so sad, waking up. 

 

A blank and balmy milk-white morning. That sadness is home, I suppose. It feels like a home unfurnished. Or like sitting on the living room floor eating cereal when everyone else is still in bed sleeping off a hangover or some sordid, exciting mistake. 

 

I pulled myself out of our shared aura of warmth, wanting to cry. I picked up the camera from the nightstand and took your picture, suddenly remembering how another man told me “You look dead when you’re sleeping, it’s cute.” I want to say the same thing to you, but it would feel sleazy to re-use the compliment. It’s a shame though, because it’s hard work thinking up things to say to you that no one has said before. I wonder if anyone has told you this particular thing. You don’t stir, you don’t appear to breathe. But sleek and content. Mortician’s masterpiece. 

 

Last night I put my feet in your lap and shut my eyes and told you everything. You held my ankles as I spoke.

Night sad is a different kind of sad, not blank or clear like morning sadness, but densely cluttered with memories. How I roller skated down the stairs in hopes of breaking a bone. How I let Brandon Miller give me chicken pox when I was six, and then returned the favor with mono when I was eleven. Other things. Unlocked suitcases and sticky bruises and mouthfuls of dirt. None of it cohesive. All the little demons clinging to the inside of my mind. I imagine scraping clusters of black seeds from the center of a fruit with a sharp-edged spoon. I think of trepanation. You’re the only person I can tell my heated dreams of beatings and surgeries. I told you things. 

 

I scratched at my wrists and fingers without realizing. You noticed the blood. 

 

All I could think to say was “Did you know that honey is more effective at healing wounds than bacitracin?” and it made you smile. “No really,” I said, “it healed someone’s sharkbite, it was on the news.” 

 

You kissed my bleeding fingers and I felt flooded with happiness. As if a valve had opened. It didn’t replace the sadness, but melted it. It was better. It was better. 

 

Now I sit on the living room floor, eating my cereal in the white emptiness.  After you wake up and stretch and find me in here, maybe we will walk to a park. Bare feet on chemically-fed velveteen grass. I will let bugs crawl on me and you will gently pluck them off and set them on leaves. 

 

I don’t want very much, but what I want, I want badly. 

  

honeymoonred:

Follow me.

I walk with the borrowed confidence that comes to me in rare moments like this. One foot in front of the other, ankles strapped in black satin, my sharp click-clock and your muffled follow. No touching, but we are close enough to detect each other’s scents mixed in with the other smells of the night. Skin and plants and earth. A dark green smell. A strand of spidersilk brushes my face, but I don’t flinch. When we come to the end of the brick path, my lovely high heels will sink deep into mud. I smile at the thought.

This night is different from most nights.

When I was a little girl, I imagined my grown-up self as a melancholy but glamorous woman. I would have large breasts and smoke cigarettes in bathtubs. I would be Hedy Lamarr swimming in a dark lake while wearing dark lipstick. And my appearance would be effortless, as my mind would be occupied with more important things than the upkeep of glamour. Of course I grew up to be quite different. I did not change much at all. I am elastic and quizzical, and usually somewhat disheveled despite my best efforts. My breasts are small. The way that my flesh is stretched over my frame (shoulders to waist to hips) gives the impression of an exaggerated curve, but I don’t dress to show myself off. I enjoy my naked reflection when I’m alone. I spread my legs in front of the mirror and marvel at how beautiful I find myself, and how lewd I can be, when so few others seem to notice me. My body bends in unnatural ways. I take pictures and send them to strangers.

The shoes I’m wearing tonight are a rarity for me, and they hurt my toes, but that clock-ing sound gives me a shiver that reminds me of my childhood vision.

Sometimes I can’t believe that I have your attention at all. But right now it isn’t hard to understand. Tonight we are equally, outrageously beautiful and elegant, and we are about to do the kind of things that depraved elegant characters in books do. You walk behind me and I wonder if you are smiling, as I am. It is a perverse little smile. I think of your hands brushing the air around me, and I walk faster and faster. I think of you reaching for my hair and grabbing me by a handful of it. I think of you using my rope of pearls like a leash, pulling hard until it strains and scatters glowing white moon-beads everywhere. I break into a run. Towards the trees and the dark, and far away from safety. 

This is what it feels like: I am a small glass bottle. Every day, you have added another drop of water to me. Now I am about to spill. Not even brim over gently, oh no. I am about to smash myself open against this brick lane, and spill eagerly into the earth. It will be messy and painful and necessary. You will watch me cast this spell that would make scientists believe in magic. It is more like alchemy. You will feel it break over you like a wave. You’ll want to drink it. 

Follow me, faster. I’m grinning like a demon as I run now. Feel the wind in my sharp teeth. I am laughing and looking back at you and finally stumbling into the mud, and you are making your advance. In your shiny flat shoes, you have the advantage now.

The trees tangle over our heads. We are evil, and we are wonderful. 

about sylvie

honeymoonred:

You loved Sylvie in small doses. As you walked home from work and approached your apartment building in the dark, you’d see her through the uncurtained picture windows on the first floor. Moving around in the yellow light, watering her prickly plants, playing with her mice. With a certain distance and a pane of glass between you, she looked like a beautiful doll. You would stand in the dark and stare, wishing that you didn’t know her because then you could wonder about her. But she always saw you and grinned, opening the window: “Come in, you silly oaf! It’s creepy when you watch like that.”

 

She made bitter black coffee and let you smoke your lucky strikes at her kitchen table, kindly lecturing you about your bad habits while rapidly knitting itchy black scarves. You had a collection of these hanging over your bedroom door, identical except for the little holes where she dropped her stitches. She was also fond of puzzles, usually with puppies or unicorns. She microwaved frozen dinners, reminded you of your deadlines, tried to make herself indispensable. She offered you plants so you’d have something to care for. 

 

“Miss Moneypenny,” you called her. 

 

Sylvie had dark reddish hair, a large mouth, freckles, black eyebrows that were straight dashes over dark eyes. Her body was cartoonishly elongated. She usually displayed her alarming thinness in short dresses that resembled school uniforms, or tight black sweaters and leggings.  She passed for a ballerina except for her posture. She claimed to be very self conscious of her body, but you could never figure out if she thought she was too thin or too fat.

“Isn’t this disgusting?” she would ask, lifting her sweater to reveal countable ribs and the lower halves of her small breasts, like pale velvet pears.  She’d gaze sleepily down at you through half closed eyes. You didn’t know what to say. All her clothes seemed so scratchy and uncomfortable, leaving red marks on her skin. You wondered what she’d look like in something soft and light. It occurred to you that you had never been anywhere with her outside of either of your apartments, and you wondered if you’d see her differently if you were to take her out to a movie or a park. 

 

If another spirit had lived in her body, she would have been so beautiful, but the air turned shrill  and prickly around her. There was a feeling of always keeping your distance even as you stroked the tangles in her hair, and she extended her legs across your lap while watching tv. Part of you liked comforting her like this. But you felt closer to her when you were watching through the window. 

Anonymous asked: you're a muse mainly because of your heart. :)

<3

toad-hollow asked: summer died last night, alone

even the ghosts huddle up for warmth <3