Asghar Abbas's Blog - Posts Tagged "warpaint"

It’s so cold. Why it’s so cold? Why was today cold? Why is everything now a different state of coldness, just changing its subtle shades like used camisoles? Well, today is forever gone and tomorrow is bruised with hope. But the morrow might not even show up tomorrow- that’s the hope.

Even before she could complete these thoughts, they froze over. It was freezing in the attic, so much, too much, so much so. She wasn't alone in there but she felt that she was. In the nocturnal cold, she wasn't covered but she felt naked. Even though the night was looking at her, she wasn’t worried about being watched, the night was blind as was everyone watching her, so it didn’t matter to her that she was still being courted by the beast. She could only pray the beast had a geriatric, gigantic library, full of fossil paperweights. Inside out, she was frozen; the cold paced in her attic edgy pale with hunger, moving around her with unmasked anger. Every part of her that was her, and the parts that weren't were chilled to their very roots, glossed over with latticed ice. Every bit, little bit of this, little bit of that, little bit of nothing, everything was just so still, so unleavened, almost pure in their white starkness. The hush outside the attic hummed inside feeling oppressive. Her limbs had stiffened in her absence gelled immobile, her joints unmoving past caring now. She couldn't even hug herself, not that she wanted to. Her stiff fingers were giving her jip, she wanted to jam them in her armpits, her fingers snug against the top of her rib cage, the back of her thumbs leaning against the sides of her breasts, even the undersides would do, but she didn’t yearn for warmth anymore. Her hair was turning purple even though that wasn’t her color, but her young skin was still as white as ice-floes in an ageless river, and just as pristinely dirty. Her hair was pitch black but in another story, her eyes chilly lilac in another unfinished verse.

She waited, oozing in the air something other than pheromones that were containing her thoughts. Bereft of all things warm, there was only her and the cold left now, and somehow the night wanted in on this action too. The cold and the night, plus her. Well, her bed was big enough. What could happen?

It was as quiet outside the attic as she was disquieted inside of it, waiting for the ghost of footfalls to fall. And yet oddly enough, she was still pining for Snow. She heard it stirring on the effete ground restless, the moors weren’t waiting for her, not this time around. Rustling of the snow outside was its sotto voce eagerness to be crushed brutally. Snow’s singular desire now was to be walked upon by something other than her; the other girl snow wanted.

The room in which she was keeping herself as much as the room was keeping her plunged without warning, taking in the air so sharply that everything around her constricted to breaking point. Luckily, she was already uncouth and broken in; who was there to exhort her when she was forced to perform, separate from all her actions, her limbs had moved independent of her up till now. Then the room hiccupped letting it all go, letting it all out in one big whoosh that reminded her of the fjords she had never seen, up in the north of everything she has never been to. The space around her wobbled a little before smoothing out neatly.

The windowpanes bulged then settled back in as all around her relaxed once again. All that was left was a sickly sweet smell of lingering plagiarism coming in from a window that was no longer a secret, which she inhaled gratefully but still, this place felt so weird to her. She was at odds with being marooned here, held up against her open need in this attic that was hers, and yet it wasn’t.

She happened to be looking that way when a quick movement outside her window startled her. Shadow of something flickered across the windowpanes. Silhouetted against her window was something unfamiliarly familiar to her.

She turned halfway toward it, even though it had seized her full attention by now, she was clever enough to give it only a cursory glance. So she looked out the window feigning bored curiosity and found herself looking at a solitary figure trying to get a look inside; she tried taking in this aspiring Bertolucci that looked lost, like something that had wandered off from forgotten lore, something that had gone off the game trail and was standing outside her attic window now. She figured it couldn’t see her properly through the dirtied window, but she could view it quite clearly. She looked at it closely and then looked closer even more. She looked at it through the veil of smudged glass like it was Collier’s painting of Lady Godiva instead of the distorted thing that it was on the other side of this forced glass border.

To her, she was nameless for she had forgotten all her names and she was given plenty of names, until she decreed it was enough, to her it looked like if all that’s occasional and everything that’s collapsible was summed up, solidified, personified into a stray scarecrow then it was that trying to look through her window. She wondered briefly how her gentle voyeur was standing outside her window when there was no ledge underneath it, but she quickly dismissed the thought, deciding she didn’t care. There were no ledges, no rooks to be found there. There would be no croaking up in here, it wasn’t that kind of night.

When she looked again, her blackened strawman was still there trying hard to see past the begrimed windowpanes. She was vaguely charmed by the way it was trying to peer inside, but she knew if she were to look away the charm would be lost, and she’d be exposed again to another world, which she adamantly did not want. For three, four seconds glazed over and encrusted with an icy sheen, she allowed herself Musing of a Lamb. So she mused a few, thinking what was so peeping about a bare lady astride a destrier galavanting through town? A lady of unshakeable repute riding a warhorse going to town like that, no need of a longsword for this weird warrior warpainted warpathing away, for her skin aglow lighting up the whole painting, auburn hair that could set fire to anything was weapon enough. Even through an enforced exposure that was very much required of her, she was still so beautiful, how did that happen? Maybe she was in love with perfection, maybe that’s why she was happy but dejected, maybe that was her secret or maybe she had none, maybe she ate all of her secrets every little dribbling one of them. Since she couldn’t get real canvases, Godgifu was content to be on one, she seemed apt at making do.

It’s just she thought she was a better patron of dreams than that lady. She felt, and rightfully so, that anyone could build their entire oeuvres around her. Because she knew what this was. This, all of this, she had better dreams than this, and just like her, her dreams weren’t unkissed. She knew a thing or two about dreams; she was like a texture of a dream herself. She was just like a dream ripe but when abandoned unacted, she too like dreams would go sour, if left unattended inside a mind too long she'd go from being a pliable idea to toxicity in a heartbeat, dead or otherwise. It was her nature to do so.

She must have been staring at the wretched wanderer for some time now and in the same manner as it so desperately wanted to stare at her. Her act felt unnecessarily cruel to her then, though it seemed to be enjoying even that, so she broke the spell. She was only part Wiccan, not a full on witch. She was a full woman fully imagined, complete in ways that were all the magic she needed to perform tricks with her nimble fingers and even nimbler mind. But that was never enough for some, especially for the one sleeping in her bed, oblivious to the extremely painful cold having unwittingly borrowing all of her warmth. The trouble was the slugabed occupying her bed believed a little too much in her magic; last night he had hit that bottle pretty hard and now couldn’t be stirred. But she herself was sober a well-behaved thought in a misbehaved head, for the most part.

Anyway, she was breaking eye contact with her not a wholly unwelcomed guest; so she did that and went to where it was waiting for her. Not sure why she was doing so, did she mean to ward off the imposing intruder, or invite it in. Though instinctively she knew it didn’t need her permission to come inside, scoop up her brain matter along with her dusty shine. In two quick strides, she reached the wound in the wall that was her window freshened once again by her presence and she stood facing the forlorn figure her breath puffing out of her, staining the air hovering around the attic that was still being written about.

She looked at it and wanted to mock it. She’d just as lief taunt it as she was likely to comfort it, but she didn’t want to push it, the border of this reality was thin after all, even though it was hardly Allhallowtide. She looked at it, the weakened waif standing there wheezing looked utterly beat, after having pipered her to the window. Its exhaustion was irritating her so she stopped faking it all, everything that she had been faking.

She peered at it with a passing sincerity but she stood her ground facing it off. She witnessed her sudden admirer reveal itself little by little; each time it steamed her windowpanes it became a little less stranger. She just hoped it was a man and it was, more or less. Men never the honeyed lambs being the culpable ones, but they were innocent in all of this, wounded fatalities that they were, getting swindled, weak, vulnerable, and hopelessly gormless. The unlucky bettors, the unfortunate gamblers, the inherent losers. Thinking these enlivening thoughts cheered her up.

Then she recalled what she had been doing. She was looking through the window. The first thing she noticed about it was its eyes; hollowed out and bloodshot, ogling her yes, but popping out of its skull that was mostly made up of stillborn love. Huge eyes; yellowed like the moon is when it wants something. Its glance was neither hungry nor benign. It was just still, chilled, like the finality of a well-deserved fate coupled with the smugness of a final draft. Its glance was soundless. There was nothing familiar about this unfamiliar but its eyes weren’t foreign. That's too bad, she had a taste for the foreign. It was looking back at her now, its bluish face sagging upon itself pitifully as it looked on. Its face was hideously pretty but made truly beautiful by her undivided attention.

She was looking at the face somewhat quizzically, thinking about it, but still, she couldn’t remember it. Then the familiarity of her sweet sweet voyeur deepened and the penny dropped from the tallest building in the smallest city that didn’t want her inside its dwellings anymore, and she knew, she knew this thing to be Winter.

She almost smiled fondly giving it a slight nod. The sum of all that was winter, ere and after, was trying to clear away some of the filth still barring their way. Exulted now, it was propelled into a frenzied possibility by her almost proximity. The poor thing was using the inside of its wrist to wipe the window but all it managed to do was smear the grime across the windowed curtain further marring the view of each other. But things have became unrushed now, they felt one other better. They measured each other by the horror etched on their faces, two decent rivals fighting for a song. It was looking at her now, not at all dissuaded by the limitlessness of ink.

She knew it was gawping at her smooth roundness, full and firm, a smoothness that she possessed but wasn’t hers, yet again nothing of her belonged to her. Darkened pinkness of her areolas twirled upward and then onward as she danced in her mind, smudging around the edges, blurring her realities, bringing much appreciated and universally accepted merriment to all her surroundings, then all her pinkness faded in a dream like a dream. She twitched due to its too ineffable stare, moving away from the window a little, egged on by concern and the intensity of its look. The way Winter was still hanging onto the sill, she supposed it wanted her to hack away the window, hewn a passage for it. Her raw nipples were roughened enough to cut through igloos. So yeah, she could slice this window, no sweat. Or she could use her index finger to cut a hole into her world for this cold courtier to come inside, but she didn’t want to cut anything anymore, and Winter knew that too. She supposed it wanted a lot of things. But what about what she wanted? She wanted to sleep in winter all the time, yet she knew what the Winter wanted, from her, of her, and for her. So it can go off-

It was miming something at her. Urgently in extremity. Its jaw-dropping open gaped widely, settling into a perfect O of a moonstruck poet, maddened gagging on words, moonbeams occluding its mouth, left gargling. Its limbs akimbo, its head hanging a little askew, its mouth hung agape in a grotesque parody of Munch’s Scream. It was uncanny, like the Scream was stolen from Oslo once again, and placed right outside her window. She was bemused until it lurched, leaning forward it breathed on the glass misting the panes. Its slimy tongue poking out of its glistening mouth nipped the window, its slovenly breath spreading hardening the glass until it ripened wanting to burst. Then the window inched open. She was expecting the glass to shatter from the weight of its snowy intent when it didn’t.

Impassive, she was unmoved being used to the male quotient of the species not doing things properly, always coming up short, always exhausting themselves right before the finishing line. The window was open, an empty space glossed between them ready to be bloodied. Winter almost toppled over onto her, blasting its almond breath directly into her face, her face vestal and bare, blowing back her hair, additional cold seeping into her bones. Before she could move to cover herself, faster than she changed her moods, it reached across the open threshold and grabbed her by the back of her neck. Its sharp stick-like fingers digging into her nape its thumb squeezing her throat. What- What was it doing? It was being assertive without turn, bruising her skin unnecessarily, hurting her when there was no need, the bastard. She wasn’t caviling in any way, she let the window be opened, didn’t she? What was it thinking? She had been in a charitable mood but this random equation wrecked it. Her pinkness would strangle it now.

It applied more pressure, compressing her throat. She didn’t react at all. She wouldn't. She wouldn’t let out a gasp. In the end, it had to let go of her; she was colder than it was. But not before it blew its smoke directly into her parted lips, her mouth fixed into a snarl by now.

Two things happened that were written where all the small suns go to die, those elephants in the blue skies,

- she staggered backward sputtering, smoke coming out of her reddened mouth made fresh again, wroth now, vehemently refusing to choke on its fog that tasted of dusk

– careening happily it pitched forward cataracting over the windowsill in a rindle of blued flesh, waterfalling onto her floor and coming to pool beside her bare feet by her design.

She cringed away when it came too near. Then it raised itself belly up like an upturned bug from the congealed heap on its all fours. Interested, she moved a little closer, curious now. It rubbed its hirsute form against her bristled leg mimicking an upside-down feline friend grinning up at her. It wormed around her calf, laying its face on her feet, its corrugated touch diffidently light. She shivered in spite of herself, in spite of her vows. It just felt so good to be touched by something nonhuman again, especially one from the verdant mosslands across the glass border. See, she was becoming chaste again by something it said to her just now.

Weaving in and around, in between her legs, chaffing her shins it was trying to rekindle what they once had; it decided on its own they were estranged no more. It was after all this time of the year they had fallen into an easy kinship; last year, every year in every story. It wasn’t until later she realized that like most things their friendship was seasonal too.

In that tipped over position Cheshire cat-ting her a smile this upjumped knight of hers swayed toward where she was bedded down for the night. It could smile all it wanted to, she ain’t following the bastard where it was going, besides that walk of its was only a facsimile of her wrath. She stood near the open window, turning slightly she checked the progress it was making. Out of the corner of her eyes, she looked at the sleeping form lying supine on the frayed mattress in that small corner of her night.

She watched Winter spiderwalk on all fours to the stripped feathered mattress on the bare floor. At the foot of the mattress, it flipped on its belly righting itself but nothing was right about the end of this season. Winter slowly crawled in the bed wanting to lie down there with them, all three of them if she decided to join them. It was preparing for its final repose, to catch few winks, to sleep the end of the harvest sleep. She watched silently as it stretched out its body, if it could be called that, to lie down next to the shadowy outline on the bed. It quietly settled in beside her consort though she hasn’t been anyone’s queen in a long time now. It snuggled up to him, she was alarmed by how natural they looked together. It was looking so much at peace lying there beside him, a picture of guiltless perfection of a wintersleep.

She looked at them for a moment, if it wanted to pastiche her emptiness in a bid to belong somewhere, then who was she to deny it her side of the unwarm bed. What space was truly hers anyway other than this night and all the cold in it?

She glanced at the mattress, watched the charade of it sleeping, even enjoying the farce.

Then she looked down at her human lover sleeping blissfully next to an awakened Winter, her expression softening her face relaxing into a smile.

Was she human? She was darkly forested, but was she a forest home to tall trees and the stars? Though the trees were all stripped by the spectacular of now, and all the stars were gone.

All of sudden, she was weary. Added tonnage of all those years finally taking their toll on her, the Age of Herself only exacerbated the matters; her featureless name sure wasn’t helping her. She was just so sick and tired of being an avatar for them. What did she get out of that gig while they worshipped her into animation? She had done more than just dance at their stupid shindigs. Did they build her stone effigies to glorify their faith they didn't have in her? No, they paid her with sincere sincerity, a currency that was all but useless. On top of that, her spiteful summoners just kept on confusing her with hope. Not her fault, losers, move on. She has had it with them, male, female, and all the other fae in between, she was fed up with them burying their grubby little faces in her songs. Birth of Her Day, all that started with a pen stuck between ink and paper. What was her return for the services rendered? They left her stranded here in this husk of a place where the night always reigned, where she owned the cold and nothing much less.

Looking at the mattress but not seeing it, she watched the curled up forms and intertwined limbs tangled with something cold catch the dwindling light. She shook a little just then and then she shook it off.

Just

She was so cold, her lungs hurt felt like they were lit with a blaze that only made her colder. Someone was holding her head underwater making her breathe down there. Forcing her to eat the ocean, so that it could consume her properly like no wolf ever could. What choice did she have but to succumb, relent into opening her mouth to all that weight of water as the scaly watery hands of her kindred dragged her down to the very bottom?

She couldn’t breathe then. She wouldn't. Nope.

She was so bitterly cold, she was so undeniably cold, she was so utterly opposed to letting his words warm her. They felt like the sea in her hands. What was the truth but his fiction? His fiction has always been much heavier than her reality, healthier to imbibe even. Yet she had trouble converting his fictitious realms into her fictional nowheres. Oh, what tapestries she could've made. Yet he was lacking, all the same, she was in need of good fiction. But. But. Her creature needn’t convince her of his words to get her out of her clothes. She’d happily do it for him, and she’d be quick about it too!

It’s just that right now she was freezing. She was an inside out frieze, a raspberry flavored human popsicle. A cold sun was melting, dying on her uncovered body that was covered only in her musk. Her spine was tingling, inflamed. Hades was kissing the entire length of it, his dead lips puckering down whilst her back arched in a happy angle, unnatural but happy. Her thoughts were frosting over. Her misery and shame were numb. Her breath was as blue as her hair. The ugly birthmark on her right cheek shimmering in the satisfied chill like a vicious bruise.

But she was done aching.
She was done waiting for Snow to save her.
She was done lying on her tummy, her face burrowing into the pillow while she offered herself to the iced world. She was done with the forgotten heat encircling her arms tightening its hold, fists furrowing her skin, forgotten heat forgetting she was forbidden. Though she knew and conceded quite frankly that the pleasure of burning was in the taboo.

Of course, no one could beat a song out of her now, for she had maimed the sea.

She was done, she was done, she was done,
done, done, done,

And done once more.

Once upon a time in another story, she wanted to sleep in winter all the time. There were times when she wanted to close her eyes forever. There was a time when she liked sleeping in the cold. Well, not anymore, no. She no longer harbored that smile.

She was the creature from the north, misbegotten forgotten offspring of Odin; his forgiven daughter. Maybe she’d get rid of him, oust the old man, and take over. But there was one thing she’d do differently. She’d lay off people, that has been Odin’s undoing. She neither wanted nor demanded their reverence. Abstinence from the pious would be her becoming; so she became her becoming. People were messy. They had a tendency to believe in their own make-belief. That was okay for writahs they have to believe in it to make it, but not so much for the gullible citizenry. Plus, writers didn't know any better. But people, man, they always find a way to divide themselves. She was still not used to them, but she suspected by the time she was through here she’d be well versed in them. Unless she opted not to.

She turned all the way around this time leaning back against the open window, her hair blowing around her shoulders, swelling in the breeze. She surveyed the room, her hands behind her back supporting her teetering frame as she titled back and forth on the balls of her feet.

Her fingers digging in the sill brushed something lightly. She stilled herself, her feet coming to a stop. A touch of metal it felt like to her. Her hands itched to hold the metal flowers again, her fingers wanting to spread them into abeyance. She fumbled a little, her hand closing around a slim object, she felt herself picking it up. Wringing her arms around, she held it in front of her. She was looking at a very decorative straight razor. Well, she was hoping it was something homelike she could use. She turned the razor around in her hand, it didn’t look like it was one of his. Must have left behind by one of her other lovers, swains she lost to the frost that bit them into oblivion. She flicked it open; she immediately liked its shine, it was so well polished Sweeney might have shined the blade himself. The blade was naive, fresh, young enough to forge a world or forage it for excuses to destroy it. She turned it as a sliver of mature moonlight, a single arch of the full moon caught the blade making it sing, it making it hungrier. She tapped the razor on her jaw, thinking, thinking it over carefully. Dodging cats and fighting irrelevancies, she just couldn’t afford to think about spring anymore. Look, hey she was into the origin stories as much as the next flailing fangirl, and she wanted to be a hero she really did, but she was out, done for. Forced to be in the open no longer hiding in the light, she wasn’t making monsters anymore. She was an Origin Story. Good thing she wasn’t desirous of a brood of her own, or she had to suffer watching her kids witnessing her turning into a monster. She couldn’t be one, either a hero or a monster, she couldn't pick up dead swallows, poor birds.

And let’s not forget, heroes are blind and she saw too much.
She was on the fence about this but she knew which side of it she's gonna be jumping on. She took in the attic again. Nothing’s ever gonna thaw in here. She wasn’t going to liquify become a condensation where she was. She wasn’t making a dent upon the world that was given to her. At least in her ruined nightlands, her body wouldn’t betray her to the ravages of a serial murderer known as time. It wasn’t much but it was something. She was all she got.

She deigned to look down at him one last time sleeping there without her and still not unhappy. Sleeping on his back while Winter lay there curled up still beside him chuckling softly to itself, she was sure it wanted to wrap itself around his body, poke him or something but it was clearly hesitant..... because of her, that she still had power surprised her. She looked at the man beside Winter. But in her benighted imaginations where the snowflakes were still aswirl, she was seeing him lying face down in the frozen ground, the color of his blood dyeing the snow. In that nighted vision, he was as naked as she was but in that retelling, she’d have on her steampunk goggles, she’d be wearing her Mad Hatter hat. Her hair was molten there, turning a shade of burnt orange. She was tipping her Mad Hatter hat at him in her mind, smiling. She saw that he saw her doing that in his dream. And she was gleeful, standing over his naked defeat in her Mad Hatter hat, happy, her steampunk goggles resting over her brow enjoying his colors decorate snow, loving it, with designs that were after her own heart.

She held the razor in her hand, still perusing it until its designs started moving around, the filigree on the shank started to crawl. She rubbed her thumb on the tang, still deciding. What to do, what to do. Then abruptly she jolted making her move, she took the singing blade, starving now, to the feathered mattress.

Winter’s eyes snapped open; it yanked out of its fugue state of pretend sleep just as her eager shadows fell upon them. It took one look at her face and fled, running pell-mell to get away from her. Abandoning its quick squeeze in its haste. She had to choke back her laughter, mirthless as it was she throttled the hell out of it. She knew Winter wanted to squeeze her and unknown parts of her at least once before leaving again, but it should have chosen whom to squeeze first more carefully, shouldn’t it?

She held the straight razor by her side, resting its spine on her thigh. It was lying open between her fingers now; she was rolling its neck between her forefinger and her thumb. She guessed she wasn’t through cutting things after all. Welcome to my Wonderland, she lobbed the thought at the man still sleeping on her bed, in her world, in a world he gave her. What were they thinking arming her? Arm her and she would revolt, it was in the nature of her cold.

Looking at him, she felt like jumping on the mattress, keep bouncing until she bounced into happiness, become a lost girl albeit one that didn't need a confused boy to teach her how to fly. But she couldn't risk waking him up. He'd never be privy to her thoughts ever again, her mind her own temple now and all that. And besides, she wanted him to feel every inch of the blade in his sleep, she wanted to cut his despair in his dreams. Rip him to shreds like she would have been massacred, ripped apart, every time she'd birth for him a shoddy world. You should have written better fiction, she thought angrily at him, you should have given me a happier world. But he didn't flinch from her thoughts. Kept sleeping happily.

She accepted now what she was. And. Cold was so pleasurable, everything around her was feeling drowsy, but she was exempt from sleep. From now out she’s gonna be awake forever and Winter's gonna sleep in her stead.

She looked at him again. She loved her creature but she didn’t like him. And now she was curious about the color of his blood. It was just so cold in here. She felt strange things when she was cold. She rippled toward the sleeping form that was about to become even more strangely beautiful, the gleam of her hand giving her away, the bare mattress creaking with her weight, and her eyes glowering bluer with the fiction of her.
She wanted more now. She wanted something else.

Mea Culpa, she thought. But I am not seeking forgiveness because it’s so cold. I am coming. I am staying. I am freezing. I’m a linguist. I’m dead tired. I am winter.

This was far from over, she had lots to redress. Other places not to be. She had many miles to go. She had other farewells yet to be said.

She was winter now.
And after all, winter was the ritual of her failure.

But sometimes, sometimes the cold was too much.

Like any decent sketch, she was trying to tell a story. And while she was showing the world her insides glistening and real, her saddest sketches were trying to tell Her their own gay little story which in actuality was her story. The Rest of the world was listening to that fable in earnest and very very intently, but was she. Even. listening. To her own story. Neither a statement nor a question pretty much like herself, but she already liked her yesterday better than her today, mostly because she was happy today.

She was murmuring something, her breath warm between her words. Only, the trouble was she wasn’t saying all those things to herself, and that wasn’t the only problem. She was still telling her story, just not to the right people. Unfortunately, she had a tendency to talk to people. Maybe her need for an audience was inbuilt, but she should have considered what was touching her hands right now.

All those cold smudges on her roadmaps were tugging at her sleeve, telling her in what they thought to be kindness that she still had something left in her to finish what she started, to end this. She knew what all those places on the roadmaps were, she just knew, she knew. She knew where all those black lines led.

Hearkening to something not yet lost to her in the middle of the desert but not deserted, she didn’t see God, but still, she knew a way out of these heavens.

Carefully looking at the maps, she knew where she was and where she was going. So she let her sleeves get tugged and tugged and tugged on. Then she shook her hands free, irritated, she lowered her steampunk goggles, painstakingly patterned in her native tongue over her small face, wearing it like warpaint. Hell, it was her warpaint for she was declaring for all the unclaimed and the abandoned, all the other hopeless creatures who never said yes, all the Other Hers. She adjusted her goggles over her hazel eyes that gleamed behind the grimy lens, her eyes huge anime huge. She tapped the golden decorative rim of her goggles, her restless fingers running all over the frames.

She was thinking she should go, just not yet. She had traded in her papery tiara for a red cloak that was rippling in the air, but she wasn’t running just standing still on the roof. No wolves were chasing her sadly, for she had tamed them all.

She remembered something suddenly, shaking her head to clear away the cobweb memory still clinging to her; she was recalling what the dried ink on her hands had been telling her, that she still had little something left in her. To do this. With that little of something, she could take a leap of faith making her fate leap and fork around the reddened mouth of her reality.

She blew out a breath; OK . Here . We. Go. go, go go go! She took off from where she was standing. Bounding off from rooftops she jumped in between the metal buildings in her nightly dystopian settings, blotting out the moon her legs crouching up in the air, her red cloak that was her sigil swelling up behind her.

The shadows she cast on the eaves of tall buildings were all honest, they were. As she bounced off between the metallic buildings liberally splashing them with those shadows of hers, they flickered on the walls shaped like a red fox, the faces of the buildings lapping up those shadows with quiet gratitude.

She was coming, she would remove every shackle there was, she would cut down all the fetters. She would find them, she would set them free. And the rest. She would poison the rest. There must be a reckoning for what they have been doing to her in her own temples.

How could she not?

A star gave birth to her, so how could she settle for anything less. She had come forth into this from a very wet star, she was already ready.

Mist and shadows swirling within her chest and down below teeny tiny little hands were stretching out her tummy from the inside.

She was fading like skin, yes that's true, but there is a lot more that's still going to come out of her.

I don't want to wait any longer, I need those colors now, but since I can't have the stolen colors ever again, I'd want something else all together. I've thought about it and I really want those colors. Still. I'll settle for this. I'll surprise you by not surprising you.

I want to kiss you, you know that right ? I do ; somewhere between your reality and my fiction but mostly just in your reality.

Somewhere in my fiction you are already kissing me hungrily, but when did I allow you to do that ? I know you have been wanting to kiss me for some time now, you have been thinking about it a lot and even writing about it. Though you are not even a Writer. But it's different when you want to, when you are the one yearning it is a different thing, right? Then what I want goes out the window, and my consent doesn't matter.

Oddly enough, I've been missing you, wanting to be inside you. I really miss wanting to do things to you. For you make me feel good about the things I do to you.

It's like I'm on a verge of losing, myself or even your colors.

So.

Put me in your mouth.

Swallow me please.

And then swallow me whole.

Shh, stay keeping sitting, keep me pinned, don't move, the inside of my wrists under the soles of your feet; my soul under yours and your softness on me.

Your whole weight, you astride, is making me real, keep going.

I am truly sorry but I'll never doubt your pinkness ever again.

It's real now, isn't it?

Nice, warm, accessible, and real; your need.

Show me.

But remember this; at its peak the Moon was mine.

This is still about a little girl looking for a monster.
The monster was either one of hers, or she was that monster herself.
There was a little monster, living in that hovel.
Such a polite soft spoken little monster, but still he was monstrous. Quite a one. Quiet one. He was.
But when he was a monster, he was like her.
It's still about a girl.
It's still about a monster.
It's still about that.
It'll always be about her.

I've come across so many wanderers during my numerous travels to the far reaching places. Straying strays like a perfectly stray thought that would always conquer the night, were those who roamed alongside me, constantly at my side. Constant companions constantly misplaced beside me in the distant lands that kept finding us together. We had each other and the others didn't matter. It was a war especially painted by us.

It had been an exemplary errantly to be sure; elegant, enormous, erroneous. Happily erratic we were through it all though. Drunk we were on familiar stars too, like a lucky number that never brought us any luck.

Only rain it gave us, and not the good kind. Wayfaring by the wayside we were waylaid often. Then we were gone. We were like a nebulous defeat, graceful in shame. Who could blame us, we were always a little wayward for other people's taste. Something else was always more to our taste, something refined, something unreal, something unkept. A little wild. Rebellious. Irreligious. We were no solution, we had no solution for this, for an unneeded heart. What else can we do about this, but what to do, about an unwanted, unwarranted, an uneventful mind.

We are holding a well lit matchstick, but what's the point, everyone around us is blind, ironically blinded by our own light. This one right here, that we're holding, can't you see what we are illuminating. We only know how to retreat, that's what we do best. What we must do now.

We, you and I, we always assumed we were that errant ghost and not her. But only she seems to possess the gift. A dark knife, her fingers wrapped around the bone hilt. Don't twist it gently. The moon is crowding us, but we'd tell her we want to earn all her smiles, and we'd say to her, the sun is about to vanish and disappear somewhere behind the blood of her name.

We, you, and I, not her- maybe her, just her. Look at her, she's glowing because she's numinous, she's fading because she is not there at all. She's inching ever closer, she is leaning forward, and yet we are the ones who are disappearing from sight.

We absolutely adore how all the animals, mythical and extinct, move her in a way that is honest. In a way she is not. Like that, that way. There. Not here. The bats in their caves love her. She knows very well how to make all the hirsute beasts grotesquely happy. She does. She is doing that right now. All the Blind Ants are seeking her out too, every single one of them, looking for her, trying to see her and her alone. The remaining bees want to do her too. On the flip side, she loves sprinkling dead beetles on her frozen ice cream, she does. That's how she twists all her endings. That's how she likes it. She's trapped, tapered candle that she is, a beeswax statue that won't melt away.

I am glad we didn't get her the flowers she had demanded when we met her yesterday, that makes me so happy. She didn't protest too much, she was busy not being there. What a loser, amIright? I mean, aren't we, right? Us or her. I wish we knew her in November. I wish I could make her stay in February. But remember, how when she was there, we were somewhere else. We were home. What about her own dwellings though. She could live without her beloved grotto, she is already living outside it. Remember, how she was worried about her nonexistent paintings. Her paintings forever left a mark, either on our walls, or on our mind. A gentle impression gently impressed upon time like an egg yolk bringing out the vermilion color.

How they used to do that in the days of yore. Yoking something together, keeping it stitched, holding all three of us together. You, me, her, we all share a certain kinship, maybe even a fellowship bizarre as that is. She was always less than a friend and more than a random person. It's a strange relationship. For sure. Over, but still there. Still happening, still flowering.

It's a good thing she is not that possessive, though more often than not she'd declare herself jealous and would remain aloof and quiet within herself. Even when all of us would be sharing her rickety bed under her thatched roof. All we lacked then was the rain, and the midnight shoes.

Her shyness fouling her breath notwithstanding, it's always better when she wants to kiss us, especially when she's already doing that. So good. It's so good. Feels too good. After all, at this point in this story, we should be kissing her and she was supposed to kiss us by now. That's just too bad. We no longer want to exchange anything liquid with her.

In the middle of her kiss, she'd make fun of us though. Her fingers look misshapen and broken. Her skin always misspeaking. The rindle of it all a little misleading. Her breath brittle and colorful. Even with us, she was empty. Never full, never sated. Rarely there at all.

She was alone, she wasn't afraid. She wasn't afraid to be alone. It was just that the cat was chortling and its laughter was human. Very. But cats alone could absolve her of things she wanted to do. Of crimes she almost didn't commit. She could walk like us, but at least she knew how to remain lost. Stay gone, she would, she could, she can, she will. And her Cat knows her all too well, her cat knows her, what she had promised, her cat knows that too. Promises made to cats are best kept. They are. They better be. Blacken the bettors will be if they are not fulfilled. She was not disloyal, she knew that. She always kept her Word. That would be her undoing. She knew that as well. She was oddly okay with that. It was fine. She could only hope her cat knows that as well.

She was always the invisible middle between the two of us, always.

Churning many things, we stirred within the woods and all the boughs shook, we didn't fell her, but fall she did anyway. She fell. She lay there felled. Right underneath us. Sprawled out under us, unrepentant she was quivering. Under the covers, under us, her dress black as night was ripped, she had that done that herself. She was in rags to begin with. Though what she was mourning, we do not know, she was the only one not alive.

She was only couple of patches and bruises short of being a rag doll. But that was okay, we were scarecrows ourselves, stuffed with not straw but with Something Else. Though we were the perfect straw-man, both of us. But we didn't scare her, did we and she loved the murder of crows, she did.

In this real life, she wasn't moving under us, but we weren't amused, she couldn't deceive us, not really. She played dead only too well, she knew how to do that, she did it so well. She would lie still for the longest period of time, she did smile the saddest song. Even her breathing was fake, like counterfeit gold. She could be very convincing when she wanted to be, when she bestirred herself that is. She once made Death doubt itself and she already had the living fooled. She was absurdly proud of that, giddy even. For the nonce, she was beneath us, but she was not the one who was helpless here, she never felt powerless under us, she wouldn't, she could just as easily reach out and snap our neck. Thinking of wringing our neck does quell something ancient in her.

She is not the only one who could caress the corpses, but she doesn't have to do that anymore. She wasn't alone anymore, she didn't want for company. Though she didn't want company. Any. Ever. But we were not leaving her out of our sight, she was out of our mind, out of time, outcast of time, she was.

Why?

Well.

She was a woman, therefore she was a story. But as a story she started ten thousand years ago, five thousand years before the recorded history begin recording, before all that was false was written down in the dying false light. Stay calm, it's only cool chilled chiliads, so chill out so.

She got going and became legend. Pretty much like how the story about an ark carrying the dinosaurs got started back then, back in the day when the days were young and people still human. Tilting to one side, where that little dinghy would have berthed? You tell me that. The boat beached on the deserted sand dunes, where it could. Where it was all possible. To begin anew. Now get off the boat. But what the boat disgorged and the only thing that disembarked was stale Faith and fossilized Belief. Which were immediately hijacked by corrupt priests who would promptly sully the soul, so resentful of people who had nothing, which they couldn't wait to take from them. They had already robbed them of their wits, poor buggers, their victims were spoiled by these preexisting priests, vilify their subjects they do, vile these creatures mostly men are, corrosive their touch. Fuck them, but don't fuck them. You don't need a soothsayer to tell you that much.

Once they are dethroned, and they will be, for sooner or later they will overreach themselves, they always do. Beguiling, belligerent, greedy, aggressive, foolish buggers that they are. Fools die, yes, then why are these fools still around, wasting oxygen. Stupid they are. Once they are ousted, they'll bolt, they will. Just watch. When they are running, soon they'll be on the run, for they love fleeing from fights, do not, I repeat do not give them any sanctuary. They'll work from within to destroy you and wreck your peace of mind for a piece of mind. Spare them no quarter. They do not deserve leniency, they do not deserve clemency, they are full of calumnies, all the lies, only for you. Kill them all and their ilk, all the kings, queens, white rabbits, princess, princes in the towers, every single one of them, slay them all. They all belong in the deepest pits of hell. Only when they are there then we'll be truly free. It's just a little saddening that before reaching their final resting place in their frail finality, they opt to make our lives a living hell, fuckers. I do rescind, I rescind, I rescind, I do, and they forfeit. Cowards, fuck them.

This is where we are now.

And.

So, to be clear. It's not just about the ruthlessness of her still beating heart and the Pretty Persuasion of her Cunt, the sweetness of it. It's not just about that, we want to make sure that's understood. It's about more than that.

What's it's about though?

Look at her hands, we are, her middle finger is crooked and bent like her utmost desire to maintain the toxicity of eugenics. That will be her unbecoming. The only one feeling untoward her in any way is her own self. That's why she avoids mirror most days. Her imaginary friends are all alone with her. They are deeply worried about their safety and concerned about her flavor, feverish in their mindless hope .

The sun is about to go down, not on her that's up to us, what we do, that's our thing, but it is about to be eclipsed by her reddened moods. The moon is already in very her name but it is feeling mutinous tonight. Her fingers does remind us of wolves. Or maybe they remind us of a certain wolf. One Wulf. Me or you? Or maybe just her. Why not. Only One of us has the silver blade.

No more. Her. No more. No more chances, She wasn't waiting for no Monsters, no Men. Monsters no longer interested her, certainly no Men. This was her world, she had no need of them. She wasn't sending for them. She was done. Waiting. She was done. With them.

However, she does have a soft spot for me maybe even for you, silly girl. She could be so sentimental sometimes. That's stupid, and she's not prone to making mistakes like us. That's not like her. Anyway, we're not backing down just because she's stupid enough to let us in. Trickle of water we are not, no, more like a deluge we will be. Yum. Like that.

In the fever of her dreams, in the pitch of the battle raging in her mind, she did offer to provide us with sexual favors. And we had planned on doing so many sexual things with her. For she makes us feel good about the things we do to her. And the things we do for her are naturally rewarding.

She is looking at us. Face fuck me, Finn.

When she says it like that, how can we resist, how could we refuse. She is watery enough to coax us out of our skins and we are not wearing enough of that. But. We are not. Doing that.

However.

Still looking at us, her eyes on us, eyes only for us, for me. Not my language. Not my religion.

And we are never leaving her ever again. Where do we sign. We sighed.

She wrapped her pudgy fingers around us, and squeezed me into existence. You already exist, even if you do not exist and there is no exit, and only this hell. Though majority of men, and some women, do believe in you despite your convoluted message. What's funny is that they are only the figment of your imaginations. What's even funnier is, it all works in spite of all that, precisely because it does not work at all.

What matters is that we, well I exist within her now. Therein I rest in the womb. And now that I do, I wonder where would our kisses fall on her body, we do want to kiss her everywhere.

The dream of having her nipple in our mouth will no longer remain just a dream. We are already taking it in our mouth.

She is making some sort of noise. But with all the extra white noise in the background, it is kinda hard to tell what exactly is she saying. She already sounds a little in love with us. We love her, but we are not in love with her. However, I am sure she can urge us to get there. All we can do is feel her skin, read the cursive ink on her body, but it's in Russian. What is it with her and her inkblot hearts?

We are confident we can get her with child.
We can get a child on her.
Well, I am going to put a baby in her.

Not you though. You had your chance and you kinda blew it. It didn't work out quite so well for you last time, did it?

Move over, it's my turn now. Deal with it. Get out of my way. Your racket is obsolete, buddy, you are done with it. Find a new one, though beware, people like thinking now. Not many, not much, but enough to give you pause.

At last, at the last moment, finally after our happiness and the struggle not to be happy anymore, we finish off on her face. Anything rotten, most things are rotten in this life, she gobbles down eagerly, hurriedly. Slow. Down. Girl. What's your hurry. Oh, there's your fire. Between the swallows we lingered on her tongue. She did swallow all the new suns like the ones in the Library at Mount Char. She does. She did. She is doing it still. And then casually, she wiped our heirs from her face. Though she took off most of her face along with us while she was doing that. She wrung most of her face, but left some of her name in the wake of her selfish actions.

It's near gloaming, when she was done wintering, and yet it's still summer. The passage of time dwindling, in the dimming of the hours, she was saying something. She had strung together some words. She was definitely speaking coherently this time. She was enunciating rather nicely. Her pheromone cult intact and cult of her personality not at risk nor damaged. So what was it that she was saying ?

Tomorrow is so far away. She seems to be saying. You can expect this and more from me. She would say to us.

She spoke. She spake.

Did we know? Yes. Are we going to tell you? No.

Not for real. Not her real words.

She spat some words, best believe that. Her words upon ours feel like her breath on our face. Words upon words, still such an acoustic prayer. It is.

Why is it that she is the only one yet to see her own face. She remains faceless to herself. She is the only who hasn't seen her.

She loved us, she did, we have to give her that. It didn't mean much, it didn't mean anything at all. It sure as hell wasn't enough. Her love. But she did love us.

To get inside her, we tell her we love her too. To get inside, we love being inside her. Maybe we mean it too. One thing is for sure, she doesn't mean well. She could whisper to the gods, it was worrisome, because they were listening. Warble of her mist, the color of dead leaf deafening and deadening.

The only chink in our armor was that reminding us of her otherworldly features and very pert but human qualities takes us out of our narrative that we are trying to pull here.
It is unsettling, disorienting, disquieting, disconcerting. We surely don't like being reminded she is human too. That is too much like when she jettisons us at dawn from her warped dreams, as much as it reminds us of pulling out of her. No wafer for us. Who is riding that lone dragon?

Look, listen here. We are not asking her anything we are not comfortable doing ourselves. What we are asking her to give up, we have already given that up. Up in the air, within the clouds. She didn't even have to ask us, she just didn't ask us.

What could she separate? Really. She is quite apt at making do. She makes do with all the make belief, does she not. She neither made that, nor she believed in. She is the magic she does not believe in, all the horses are whispering to her.

Monsters fall in love too, you know. We know. But she fell in love with a Monster at midnight. Who could that be? Not you, you are too busy dealing with all those thoughts being lobbed at you in utter disbelief. So, it has to be me. I am the only logical choice. The only one willing to be a monster. No one has gotten hurt by her imaginations just yet, what's the worse that could happen. For it has already happened. She is in love with me. I still want to remain a part of this trinity. Though she is quite nonugly. But I don't want any part of this ugliness. It's over, buddy. We cannot steal anything from her now, least of all a kiss. She Is Dead. The knife is getting deeper, though she has let go of it.

So the fine folks in their finest finery over at the Kongos are right. Repetition is the key, so repeat after me.

Poison is prejudice
Poison is prejudice
Poison is prejudice
Our Creed is Cold
Your prejudice is poison
and it is killing only you

We mustn't relent and give in. Cave in. We must make room for both our dry ideologies. Must house them under the same roof. Hope that we can tolerate what is designed not to be. Learn to coexist and live together. Learn to surrender.

Improve. Impel. Enliven. Grow. Stay. Don't stray. Make ugly babies. All of that.

As for her? She'll be fine without us. She is doing just fine on her own. Already on her next voyage. Water welcoming her warmly. Everything wet and in denial of her reach. She never needed us and she is taking something of me and from me.

But not from you, or of you, Haha!

Fuck, what were you thinking. Back to the annals, off you go stupid. I'll see you every other aught.

As for her. Again. Where ever she will end up, it will be like coming home for her.

While she is here. Well, that's a different story. For she is a different woman here.

She cannot stay here much longer, she simply can't. She must leave before this strange house becomes familiar. Before she herself becomes a familiar stranger in her home. She is going, her kin is waiting. She wins this time. She cannot remain stuck in this unknown darkness, she just can't.

At least now, by now we don't have to wonder how wondrous she tastes. We don't have to keep thinking about that, wondering, we don't have to go on like that.

Her home is shimmering toward her.

She won.

She never played.

She stayed.

I won.

You lost.

Now it's a story.

Complete.

Ég elska þig hreint, ég geri það

Did I lose something last year? Looking at you, I wouldn’t know it. You can’t tell right now but I am sad, I am so very sad right now. You are with me; I have no reason to be sad. In this simple moment, you are here and I have no reason to be. To be here, be here, or simply be, or let it be for that matter and it does not matter. It hardly ever does. But you know something, no way, there is no way we could have made music of any kind last year. Nope. We made many nameless things, for sure, nothing that can be added on this page, or to this story. All the music sheets are brimming full of our misdeeds. You can’t read those lines anyway, all those muted staves are deafening. We made other things but not music. It wasn’t impossible, it just wasn’t possible. So I couldn’t stuff you with your own songs, you couldn’t spoon-feed me my words. I hadn’t been able to, you weren’t willing to do that either. That was then though. What to do, what do we do now? Okay. Well. Fill yourself with wonder, lust, stale poetry, faulty magic, and the possibility of all of it happening. All of it happening to you. All of it happening for you. Like what? Everything. Sure, I’ll hug you twice, you are so squishable, I want to squeeze you anyway, you are so plump and plush. Okay, I lie down with you. Of course, you can be with me, we’ll go together, at once. However, one little thing you must do before we do all that. We will do all of it. Leave behind who you are, and what you want to be, and just bring yourself. Come with me now. Stop dithering, why hesitate? Why wait? Why not? You didn’t turn on me, you didn’t go against me, you went up against someone other than me. Something else and it was something. You didn’t mean to betray me; you just fell a little in love with me, just a little bit. It was only a little bit, with only little bits of you, that's it. The thing is, the more you read, the more I wrote, the more you fell, and still, all that is making you fall even more in love with yourself. That’s when the trouble arises. It’s unacceptable, you mustn’t be free, what is there to liberate you from, aren't you smiling, you are so happy, so you are even if you can't feel that. Okay, you can stop now, that's creepy. Your smile is creepy now. So settle down, sit back, relax, and think about how disappointing all your heroes are, how you are disappointing all of them. Heroes and cons, it's not about them, it’s all about the endings. It’s a sharp end, better watch out. You asked me to make you human, you don’t understand. I can’t do that. Here’s the thing, things we do with each other, and things we do to one another are naturally awful, and that’s fine. But the pretext, the horrid excuse, we use to bind ourselves to ourselves is quite unnatural and unnecessary really. Even though people need people. The love that makes us abandon the ones we love is what makes us humane. It is what fixes us and we don't need any fixing but we are fixing to find out anyway, especially if your mouth is involved. Anything that makes us human is plain wrong. Listen, shapeless as it is, unconditional love is unsettling. It is upsetting us. Love is there only to make us monsters, nothing else. These are the badlands after all and this is the only afterlife you are going to get. Not as green as you had hoped it would be, it could not be. And the otherness of the others? Well, what about it. We all abuse women in the language of loneliness. Even other women. Women can be just as bad as men; women are as bad as women. We are all complicit in the fall of men. We felled the remaining trees. But we were talking about one woman. You. With other people, I can’t be myself. When I am with you, I am something else. Look, if you keep looking elsewhere then what we have will never be enough. What we do have, is that not enough? It’ll never be enough for you. I know that. This I know. All this. All of me. Enough. I have got to rest but I won’t forget the rest. Forget all the bad thoughts, you can stop battling your mind, you should, you have already conquered this night. In this silent womb, we can reach out in the darkness to hold hands, we did hold hands, though what we were holding felt wet and globy. But what were we really doing that day other than holding in our crumbling world, or at least trying to, while ceasing to exist, looking for an exit? Cut to now, we can cut some more of this. It doesn’t matter what is on the murder board, this earth cannot bury us, no earthen mold can keep us for long. I am not going to murder you, okay, get on the boat, but we can murder all our friends. Don’t look up, stars die every day where there is no light, dying stars notwithstanding, we are all, every one of us, desperate desperate creatures behind our masks. You are close, but come a little closer, scoot over, not so close though; you smell of dead earth and death. What are we doing here? We are surrounded by these newer ghosts when we still have the old ghosts with us, oodles of them, you are not the only ghost here anymore. When the dreams turn terrible, you know it’s time to wake up. But can you wake up from this? Do you even want to? By the end, we don’t become ghosts. In the end, we are nothing but stories our ghosts would tell. That’s the prayer, the litany we repeat like a prayer we don’t have. We never do. We never have the time to think about anything. We don’t have to. Not here. Still, we must toil. Listen, this small piece of plastic cannot prevent our future. Our future is female. What? Are you walking away? Are you walking off this existence? What happened to you, you were a god. Once and once was enough. Loki didn’t trick you into anything, only revealed you. Where did you go, where are you now? Where will you go. Where are you going? It’s all a mistake. Walk away then. I don’t care. You have to stop being afraid of that last song. Listen to it until everything is logical again. You must, must you? It’s okay, it is going to be alright, all right. It’s all fan fiction anyway. Aurally delightful as you are, I wish you were still fictional. Don’t fret, not to worry. I went away as a writer but I came back to you as a man. Now. Hold still, very still, might be I’ll be able to ease into your song for the final time. And hey, at least, at the very least, we have earned this end.