Wink, Beat, Plead

I'd lick your wounds clean, if only they were skin deep. But, then again, age of consent is still some years off, so just sit there and cry yourself to sleep, the law is very clear about this sort of thing. She gave me half of something she was meant to keep, a bloody dripping precious thing, I can't turn her away, not now that she's exposed her truest self. I clutch the thing in my hands, like a father holding his newborn daughter, I must be tender and strong and warm and rich, there's only one her in this wide world, and I'll do my best to keep her safe.

I am standing on the summit of an icy and lonely peak, and below me I can see an ocean of blue and green eyes all peering up at me with eagerness and admiration, but they can only see the shadow of what I am. Possibilities permeate and writhe in this thing I call a mind, little shocks of gold and curls of black and every so often some hushed words or quite promises. I drank myself to death, and much like the phoenix (though with less dignity) I rose from my pile of bile and stink to live a new life in a new body with new purpose. Our fingertips touched once, and I remember the look in her eye: Surprise.

Punishment: with long teeth and sharp claws is lapping up the blood of my afterbirth, yet as I look I behold nothing, and nothing stares back at me with a smile and a hiss. Grinning I take inventory of my heart, three-quarters empty, and a fourth is bleakness and smoke, or fog, or spittle, there isn't enough light to tell for sure.

I had an idea for a novel, but all the characters had one eye and no teeth. The words stared back with such baleful glances that I was forced to burn the pages in the campfire, now no one will know why I did it. I buried her body under the stones where we used to sit and watch the leaves change color and fall, gliding downward, to be held on the surface of the creek, like some queen's palanquin paraded through the streets of long dead city. In the moonlight I was made a god, a fleshless, bloodless, loveless creation of unrequited love, the son of myself and no other.

I'd show you the world, if only you weren't blind. But then again, you could still hear the music their suffering makes. I always wanted to ask: How does wearing a mask feel? Now, I know you don't wear it often, but whenever you do, it scares me. It looks like your face, but with no life in it, and it reminds of chilly day when I spilled hot chocolate on myself. Your hair too is reminiscent of a pair of glasses I used to love, eerie. Then she gave me half of something, hard and clean and cleverly carved, and I cherish it with my dying breath, a truer, purer friend I've never known. There's a few of them left in this world, little girls with pure hearts and clever hands, young women with sharp minds and kind eyes, youthful boys with passion and a desire to learn, and I'm just an ugly little worm, but I am a lucky bastard to call them friends.

I am sitting on the stump of an old tree by a river, and in my hand is a half eaten apple, in the mud at my feet an ancient sword is piercing mother Gaia's flesh, and next to me on the pale sand is the bleached skull of the woman in the blue dress I saw in a dream. But dreams seems to turn sideways and mutate into nightmares in the blink of an eye. So I pray in a fervor, I force myself, I struggle to wake up. With a snap my eyes open, wide and bloodshot and full of wonder at the new day that awaits me.