Reptiles

I've come to realize Starbucks is one of the best places to write for me. Lack of distractions, yummy drinks and music through my headphones. I haven't been feeling too well lately (I had strep throat and all the goodness and fever that comes with it) so some nights, instead of going to jiu jitsu with Mike, he would drop me off at the Starbucks near the Studio and I would simply write write write.

Then there comes the realization that a lot of the things I write are dark. Dark themes that most people would rather shy away from, but for some reason they like to stick in my head and upset me until I get them down on paper. But then they sit there, and sometimes I like how they are written, despite the content, and I want to share them, and get opinions, but I am too afraid of people's reactions.

That said I am going to post a piece of something that I wrote over the last week. It contains some rather disturbing imagery so if there are those of you out there who don't want to read what your daughter/sister/friend has going on in her mind some days and be disturbed... stop reading now :)

Inspired by the lyrics of this song.

Cold. It was cold, breath whispering fog in the early mornings before light hit broken glass, bouncing red, blue and gold through steam, a miasma of beauty. It reminded her of butterflies, flitting carelessly through the air, stamped on skin and shimmering with sweat.

Shivering, she pulls naked knees closer, scraped and bruised with misuse, and tries to focus past the cool bars of the cage pressing into her shoulders. She has a name, she knows she does; or she had, before everything was stripped away and the needles made the world blur. Antibiotics, medication, words so often whispered in her ear as countless syringes perforate her veins, the air growing hot, thick and laboured, skin shrinking and so sensitive to the touches sliding along thighs. It’s not medicine, she knows that much, even as her spine contorts and heat wracks her frame, arching for more.

Once, when she was less caught in the never ending circle of pain punctuated cruelly with pleasure, she tried to escape. Now, whispered praises are like the poison inserted into her arms, noxious and oh so addicting. She learned her lesson well, the bite of a whip curling and snapping against her spine teaching her the consequences of her actions. She listens.

There are no more questions. There were at one point, and she remembers them mattering, recalled that sealing her lips was important. She doesn’t know why anymore but it doesn’t matter, she can’t dredge up the answers anyway. But she misses the queries, they kept her more alert, gave her a semblance of schedule. Now it was just dawn, coloured grime and black iron walls, midnights where scars flashed moonlight jewelry and a studded tongue flicks the white contours in memory. Everything else is just in between, hot or cold, misty.

Footsteps, hollow and loud, trudge closer and through bleary eyes she sees him. She can always evoke his name, it's burned into her flesh, imprinted on her mind. It’s the one she calls out, twisted nightmares and scintillating dreams mingling with reality as the world comes unhinged.

Afterward she's left alone. Always alone. Curling in on herself she stares as the shafts of light, no longer colors. Instead they fall unheeded through the cracks, sparkling on dust. She wants to touch them, but every time she’s tried they simply swirl away, dancing on bright feet, hiding a lingering warmth.

I guess the title only makes sense if you read the song title and the lyrics. There is a lot more to this, and I swear it ends on a hopeful good note... but I needed to get it off my chest and write it. Which is probably evidenced in the way its nearly 6000 worlds long in its entirety and I wrote it in less than 48 hours.

Anyway, try not to judge me too harshly. I am trying to be brave here and show some of my work that I know not everyone will look at with approval.

And that is all...