But she's young, so young that she hasn't been loved yet, or born, or recollected (and recollected's a good word, isn't it, thick as oil and eggs and mustard in her mouth?)--
It's been a long time. It's been no time at all. How can she tell? Her pieces are floating away, flesh peeled from bone and intent to sink away, man to clay to mud. Instead, she clutches tighter the words and lights that must have been a hundred years ago until they split into petals and fall with a flourish--until they're almost things to touch. Imagine the lotuses in the mud to bury in a chest for hope. Not a false one that she's never had, of course--but the blood-and-sinew cage locked underneath her clutching arms. Whole.
Breathing.
Outside, through the sky, sinks the old, red world. Bile and marrow smear across their white floors, grit between the unreal clouds. The ghost-boy-killer knows simple motions, and Innocence is always simple: snake past and twist, puncture and smash. He's good; he's second-best; he's synchronized and each motion is perfect. The corpse heaps roll their identical marble eyes in awe. Their heads crack like eggs.
Inside the endless summer world, she laughs and thinks her giggles would bubble if they could. But she swallows them each--pretends instead that she can feel the muscles in her throat in a place that's real.
Dark sings an echo to her sleeping veins and she sings it back: lush, nonsensical, timed by her ongoing heart. Someday, she sings to the brightest flowers in a field that never was, someday. He'll know the truth in his cut-out heart. He'll see those weird monsters biting, chewing up their own's limbs for a taste of freedom. Or some trigger will fire--he'll remember it all the way he'd known her favorite hiding places, once upon a time. Someday, someday--and the same old Akuma's rolling, grotesque clown faces are bursting like overripe balloons to spatter the petals. (Surprise!) It's her vision--she can kill them if she likes.
But she's young, so young that she hasn't been loved yet, or born, or recollected (and recollected's a good word, isn't it, thick as oil and eggs and mustard in her mouth?)--
It's been a long time. It's been no time at all. How can she tell? Her pieces are floating away, flesh peeled from bone and intent to sink away, man to clay to mud. Instead, she clutches tighter the words and lights that must have been a hundred years ago until they split into petals and fall with a flourish--until they're almost things to touch. Imagine the lotuses in the mud to bury in a chest for hope. Not a false one that she's never had, of course--but the blood-and-sinew cage locked underneath her clutching arms. Whole.
Breathing.
Outside, through the sky, sinks the old, red world. Bile and marrow smear across their white floors, grit between the unreal clouds. The ghost-boy-killer knows simple motions, and Innocence is always simple: snake past and twist, puncture and smash. He's good; he's second-best; he's synchronized and each motion is perfect. The corpse heaps roll their identical marble eyes in awe. Their heads crack like eggs.
Inside the endless summer world, she laughs and thinks her giggles would bubble if they could. But she swallows them each--pretends instead that she can feel the muscles in her throat in a place that's real.
Dark sings an echo to her sleeping veins and she sings it back: lush, nonsensical, timed by her ongoing heart. Someday, she sings to the brightest flowers in a field that never was, someday. He'll know the truth in his cut-out heart. He'll see those weird monsters biting, chewing up their own's limbs for a taste of freedom. Or some trigger will fire--he'll remember it all the way he'd known her favorite hiding places, once upon a time. Someday, someday--and the same old Akuma's rolling, grotesque clown faces are bursting like overripe balloons to spatter the petals. (Surprise!) It's her vision--she can kill them if she likes.
Nothing lives in the mud, not really.
Trapped under glass, Alma dreams of birth.
Reply
Leave a comment