Cold in my hands,

in this dream, I hold a carven silver pomegranate. Scarlet juice runs down my arms, garnet seeds scatter, I am bound in a ring of peony petals, palest blush matching my cheek. 

I bear white gauze into the summer starlight, I tattoo myself in woad. My fingertips are stained the color of your eyes when they have gone dark with desire, and I can paint on the mossy stones each shuddering breath that burns beneath my skin, reddening the pale. 

I taste toasted coconut and desert air, dry and scented with cactus blossom, I come clothed in spider-silk and pearls to the sun. I am blooming, blushing too. This year is marked in pinks. In magenta shading to deep violet. 

At the pollen-bright center my body lies, an invitation writ in gold for a kiss--oh! Just one kiss, to begin! I write all my longings in a shaky hand, posted to the wandering bee. 

remote update

A carpet of stars
caught on blue velvet, each grain
faintly glimmering:
impatient, I'm rushing past,
waiting for life to begin.
--

I miss the darkness;
the skies outside the city,
the scent of the wind.
--

Thesmophoria

It is not right that I cannot pull the ghosts
and wreckage of all that pain out of your hand,
clenched half-closed around a cigarette,
while your lips firm with the idea that I will turn my back.

I cannot say: here is my heart, full of teeth
and bent nails, bound to destroy, bound to reform--
I cannot speak without the rust of tears betraying me.

Give me your hand and let me draw out the cobwebs,
put your palm over my chest full of forge-coals and discarded ore,
touch me and be assured that I know of sorrow,
know of its threads that come loose and tangle,
knot around the tongue.

I cannot say: the stars in their bloody orbits know
that I am unable to walk away from your wounds
with healing held behind my sharp teeth,
ever needing to press my mouth to the cut,

to whisper black ink and snip loose threads,
prayers rising in smoke. I cannot tell you
I can hear your refusal to acknowledge that pain.

You grit your teeth and go on, you turn
your face aside from the only words I have to give.
We are not twins, but mirrored. I do not fear any end
but uselessness.

Ananke

These are the flaws that make it mine:
a slanted stitch, a hole, a miscount, a wavering hem
that flows from side to side instead of marching steadily on.

The hands that make these things are as contrary, each
slow shift, each clicking needle a testament to shallow
waters. Each wrist flick, each knuckle crack, a metronome.

Contradiction in every cell. Wide palms and narrow fingers,
spread aslant to pull a thread, to snip or coax just a little farther on.
I cannot weave any longer, but I can cull. Press a finger into the

hollow of this wristbone, press your lips against the pulse that beats
there, grey wings thrashing against a black iron cage, grey wool winding
around ebony needles, grey pinstripes on silk like dark waters.

Slipped stitches, dropped skeins, slow and steady will make no
imperfect thing. Speed alone will kill, rushing headlong into the end.

Knot it tight and move on.

ohana

no nine-tailed fox, not now. only washi dissolving in ink and tears and rain. your lips are gone and the light that rang in your eyes like the nine thousand names of god has dashed against the rocks and shattered into nine times nine thousand indifferent fireflies.

that name was a silver bullet on a full-moon night, piercing cold, meant to wound until I folded out of your way like the paper crane, I whispered, I warned you, that simple fold that may be my true form. I cannot bar you from harm when I have no more stars to light my way. I used to know where I was going from here.

you are not who you were. I cannot be who I am. I will remember who I was, someday, and I will braid my hair into a coat. a chain. a noose, a sail. I will no longer look into the night sky, hoping for a way home. I have learned the futility of loss, the frailty to mourn, but I never regret. just give me time to stitch this up and regain my balance, to stop bleeding out on someone else's floor.

Fin de siècle

I wake in the day, blinking in the sun
dandelion-fuzzy, curls fizzing out of my head,
the blood falling from my face like milk-glass--
ecclesia non sitit sanguinem.

But I blush out of habit and out of reach,
the sucking sound of your lamprey mouth
so many miles away, your voice shimmering through
my dark waters. Your direct gaze.

Reaction in my skin puts out tendrils, a vine
and a catalyst, opals poised to burn, acid
in the acrid night, full moon smiling on the auto-da-fé
of my heart, staked down and set alight

without hesitation. A shiver in the wake of your smile.
A note vibrating in the darkness before the dawn. A knife that
sinks in, remote. I cannot repent. I cannot forget. I cannot relent.

awake

You are a shrine to dangerous things, he says, while I press
my nails into his neck. And I am. I breathe smoke into the
night sky and wait for the clouds to roll in.

Kali, dancing, pauses between steps, and I run, heart aching
through lightning strikes and coming down hard on every
roll of thunder. Singing bowls chime the dawn of my day.

Tear it apart, he pleads. Crack it open and pull out the shreds
and shards of every evening spent beneath your feet. Tease out 
the splinters and do not worry, do not mind the ragged breaths.

I will do as I please. I will dance, singing, while I belt on bones
and crown myself with lilies and ashes. Howl hymns to me, taste
chicory and burnt sugar on your tongue and bow down.

I am lovely in this light, a dangerous thing you have discovered,
a monster and a lake, a god and a sea in which you may drown.
Dive, drink deep. Be afraid.

For I am a shrine, sacred to those who creep into my arms, to the tears
and exhaustion of love. Hallowed by sound and sharp scent and the burn
of needled flesh. I am a temple and a wave.

I will draw you in and be damned.

gilt-edged

the key grinds in the lock, the tumblers turn

and I am mute with need, my shaking hands filled with 

cast-off shards of iron and agate, glass sticking into skin,

blood welling from the edges and you sink deep. somewhere,

I left my resistance out to dry.

I will pull my ribcage apart and let you eat, replace my red-running

muscle with silver wires, that wretched heart with a canary

stained with iodine, leave me packed stiff with gauze 

and settling in for the winter, racked with longing

and marveling at the chill.

it's supposed to be spring and still I run through gasping cold,

ash-brown trunks blushing green, maple buds burning 

against the sky like the embers of every lonely cigarette

that has flared between my lips at night. at dawn. at civil twilight.

you have coiled between my thighs to hold the ashtray and 

even wordless, my hollows and edges limned electric,

there is no difference between the summoning

and the invitation.

little brass key

I have a steel wire wrapped around my skull, silver flush with the bone in a spiral shape. There is a keyhole just below my occipital ridge, enameled in green, lined with brass and surrounded with copper filigree. I have grown my hair to hide this vulnerable place, the fontanel of my desires still fluttering and gasping for breath. I have hidden more than this from you.

You are a clockwork creature, and I have wound the brass key in your back for years upon years, springs coiling ever tighter inside your bones, and I hesitate to wind you when you creak and groan beside me, but I cannot stop. If your springs snap, perhaps I will finally be able to take the key and give it into your hands, give you the ability to touch the arbitrary nature of this desire. Perhaps I have always expected you to stick the key into your mouth and coat it in acid, and then use it on me.

Let me break the strands of coiled wire resting in your skin, and I will kneel in front of you, pulling my hair aside. I will bow my head and wait for you press the key into my own lock, to turn it while I bless you for the pain. When you twist the wire of my bones I will open like a flower and sing my pain into you, I will weep and plead and curl into you. I will drown you in the dark waters I have concealed for so many years, and we will rust in the cold and copper-tasting well-water together, whispering pain into each other's bones to replace the metal your acid has leached into my base and basic nature.

a pact

Jotun, jotun, brush my hair, and I will be your Thursi.
Call me night and call me cold and I will warm for you.
Cry out in my arms and I will be your Yagayevna,
witch-daughter and eater of flesh,

praise me and I will sing. Unholy hymns rising in the
air like wisps of fog, surrounding you,
binding your arms, knotted tension and anticipation.
Peel back my skin with tempered wit.

I will take your hand and place it on my throat,
hold a hallowed knife against your spine, press these
words into your mouth by moon-dark and while you
choke on them, I still will sing,

pull you into the tide. I will drink
deep of your lust, your longing, and your adoring
gaze. See me as I am.
Braid my hair into fetters, chain yourself to my broken heart.

Frost-eater, fell and fair, wrap my braids around
your wrists and hold tightly. Call my name
in the night, gasping for breath under my wave,
until we drown together and rise again with the tide.

Brush my hair, long strokes from my crown to my waist
and I will sing for you until you can weep no more.

For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause.

Sleep well, beloved. 

Anniversary

"Then I had to take Quill to the vet. He's been eating string again. Dr. Delaporte says there wasn't enough in his system to really mess him up, but I'm going to have to put my craft stuff on a higher shelf. At least we didn't have to send him in for surgery. Dodged a bullet, huh?" She taps her chipped fingernails against her front teeth and changes position in the uncomfortable chair. "Maybe not. Maybe Quill wants a vacation. He likes the treats there." I'd like a vacation, she mouths at him.

The faint, chemical smell of the room coats her tongue, and she takes a drink of coffee to rid her mouth of the taste. It doesn't help. Now it's chemicals and cold vending-machine coffee, drying her out. It makes her brittle.

"What's that girl's name? Simone? She stopped by again this morning. I don't know if anyone told you. I told them to be sure to tell you I took her off the visiting list. Did you mind? Just say so." Surface smiles. Black anger beneath. "Just open your eyes and tell me, David. Tell me you want them to let in your whore." She leans forward, the cold metal of the chair's arms digging into her wet palms. "I should have left you where I found you, you coward."

She isn't expecting an answer. Sometimes in dreams, when she says this, there's a reaction. His eyes open, and they're dark, they're rotting in his face, his tongue decayed into grey mash. His skin peels away from the bones of his face, stubborn strips of fat clinging like cobwebs. But here, the respirator churns and pushes, the low beeps and murmurs of his assorted machinery continue to fill the silence.

"I'm taking Quill to the beach this summer." She settles back into the chair, looks at her ruined manicure, considers relenting. They've assured her repeatedly that there is no way David can understand what she says, only that she is there and speaking. So he can hear me? He is in there, listening, right? Her voice trembling, the perfect shine of wifely concern lingering in her eyes, she asked them over and over again, can't I talk to him? Can't he hear? Carefully faked breakdown after breakdown, waiting with head bowed to listen to the nurses around the corner, whispering about devotion.

Devotion. Sure. "I'm taking Quill," she says again. "I'm taking your dog to the beach, David, and I'm going to bury him up to his head at high tide. And if he tries to get away, I'll break his legs first." She lowers her voice when she catches the squeaking of the night nurse's rubber-soled shoes in the hall, leans in again to stroke his wasted face.

She stands and grabs her purse from the nightstand. "It's the least I can do, darling. I'll see you next Monday."

--
For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Barb Black prompted me with "I guess we managed to dodge the bullet that time..." and I gave SAM this prompt: "Odin sacrificed himself to himself, and gave us eighteen runes and seventeen known charms or magical songs. He also learned an eighteenth, a secret song. Please write it down for us, weave it into a tale, or describe it and its effects."

Après moi

The strawberries are red lips, glistening in the bite marks, freshly glossed and plump. She catches herself staring at the half-eaten one dangling from her shaking hand and sets it cautiously in the saucer. Her teacup is just to the side, sitting in a ring of milky runoff, the pale tan soaking into her grandmother's lace tablecloth. Scattered strawberry leaves, still attached to garish red chunks, discarded like a tiny pile of skulls on some barbaric grassland.

She would pour herself another cup of tea, but the pot is cold, and the cream jug is in shards next to the antiqued baseboard beneath meticulously restored sash windows. Instead, she wipes her berry-stained fingers on the ruined tablecloth and rises, bare feet whispering over bare boards. She steps out of the sunroom, onto the neat grey carpet of the parlor, and when her footfalls grow silent, she might as well be gone.

The note under the sugar bowl remains, edges ragged with haste, a mute affirmation of months of suspicion. The blue ink scrawl, square and cruel, rattles latches in the darkest hour of the night.

In the carefully-appointed guest bathroom, she puts her small fist into the mirror they bought in New Orleans, silver-backed shards sticking in her knuckles, blood falling into the sink. Just droplets, at first, and then the deluge.

Trust is not porcelain, shattered once but potentially reparable. Trust is a dam that holds back everything we would rather forget.

--
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Leo challenged me with "I trust you to break my trust in you." and I challenged femmefauxpas with "Please write a flash fiction story (600-1500 words) opening with a character stating, 'That's not enough,' into the phone and hanging up. There should be at least 580-1480 words after that opening. In addition, please ensure there is a clear ending to your piece. No 'to be continued,' no vignettes, no continuing characters."