Shame

We all have secrets. They fester under our skin, atop our veins but below the surface of our membrane. Eternally cankering away, awaiting their moment to be sliced to freedom. For some that moment comes; in honesty. For some that moment is forced upon them, the discovery a scalpel wielded by others that peels back ones flesh and rips apart the sinew - secrets bleed from there willingly, the vessel from which they came reduced to a shivering husk. When he died I started to cry in the shower. It was the only place I felt safe enough to do so. I'd turn the heat of the water so high it seared my eyes, burnt them in my sockets. That was the excuse for my tears. And as quickly as they were born from my eyes they were drowned. Circling the drain like a haunted may pole dance, waving me a solemn goodbye. My nudity made me feel sincere, but the mere fact I hid behind a veil of pain and forged myself a mask of water meant I was never candid. Instead I was a coward. Hiding from my own grief even in the one place I was truly alone. I remember once he told me that he cut himself. He didn't need to tell me because he wore the evidence everywhere I touched him. For him it was a moment of utter trust. In his mirror ball eyes I saw the loneliness he'd always felt fade a little, our true love made him less afraid of the madness he harboured. He looked away from me for a while, the dark sheet that wound itself around his truths was placed across his irises once more. When he spoke next my skin pricked goosebumps. I was so scared of his necessity to me in that moment I had to suppress a scream.

He said the way he felt inside his heart could not be explained by his words. Nor could his eyes ever weep for his anguish. So he took to the blade to make his eyes see his pain. In the hopes that the physicality of it would make his brain recognize the injuries, his ducts would accept its reality and give him the release he so desperately craved. But that pain was secondary. The cuts too shallow. I wish he'd stopped searching beneath his skin. It wasn't just secrets that drained from his body. His life drained away on the end of that blade too. So I saw it respectful of the tears he could never shed for his own life to hide mine at the loss of it. For every one that rolled down my face was bragging; boasting of an emotion he was too twisted to portray. I could never tell if he was more ashamed of the depression that haunted him, or the fact he liked marmite on pancakes. He was a boy of many quirks and I carried them with me when he left them behind. Dusting them off every year as a homage to him. I sit and I drink hot coffee from a glass, and I begrudgingly eat marmite soaked crepes. I think maybe I'm developing a taste for them, or maybe it's now just to me the taste of him. Not the taste of his lips that I remember, the sting of a chemical seasoning, but the taste of his memory as it is to me now. For all this talk of honesty I have yet to disclose my secret, because like the soldier of horror he was he wore the badges of his battles where all could see. And whether in the scars we both created, or in the sheets that cloak our secret torment within our eyes - we stand united in that fact. But the thing that makes me sick with shame, that writhes in my skin and plagues my stomach. Is not my grieving. It is not my love for him. It is not that I miss him every minute, of every hour, of every day. It is the horrifying fact, that sometimes, as the years have gone on; I forget to.

hang over

The crisp air of the morning sat stagnant on my tongue. As if a kiss from an unwanted advancer it lingered in my mouth - not allowing me an escape from its grasp. The clarity of the sky was toxic to me, a festering corpse not supposed for this bright morning cleanliness. There I sat in a shadow of a building that was barely there. Clinging to the small slither of darkness that the ghost of the night before dragged with it. We were companions in the dark. Strangers after its dispersal. Left only to dance with the shadow of my own twisted mind I clung to that familiar darkness - grateful for the familiarity it blessed me with.

I heard the squeak crash of an approaching bus. The drudge of the commuters, their eyes barely focused but their scorn polished. I stared unabashed at them. For I was not one to back away from their gazes, for I was never one to retreat from a fight. Yet, I did. As the doors closed before me I did not challenge them. I did not rival them. I did not question them. I simply allowed them to close, fully aware of the power I was relinquishing - to another sect in which I shall never belong. The scowl on my face my last medal of honour. An armour against a pity I not yet deserved.

Voog

Before I met her I'd never known anyone who had a favorite star. To me, and most of the western population, they were all the same. Blinking or stagnant they were specks of light that were consumed by the neon of the city, only visible during power cuts or trips to the country. But to her they were friends. The things that kept her from being consumed herself, by the darkness as she shook beneath a cold cloudless sky. She said her favorite star was the one that hung directly above the Senqu river. She said it was the one that she concentrated on most as the rough stones in the shallow waters scraped themselves against her legs. She was so thin I wondered if perhaps the stones she remembers so vividly were even as large as she recollected, or whether - like the princess in the story - the smallest pebble felt huge under her malnourished flesh.

She had come so far from the tragic princess whom was once lain on that river bed. She was a woman now. Her bones no longer protruded from her in their childish manner. Instead her curves hugged them, the muscle and fat of age protecting them in a way they never could when she was a child. She still winced as she ran though. Certain injuries never quite heal right, especially without the right medical attention. But she ran through the pain nonetheless. I asked her a few times why she put herself through it. To me it seemed unnecessary. She barely looked at me when she answered, she just continued to lace up her bright trainers. 'Pain is a small price to pay for strength.' she spoke. I never understood at first but the more we ran, the longer I knew her, the more obvious it became. No physical pain would ever beat the torment she endured. But not even the most revered work-out routine in LA could help her with that.

The pain had hardened her. As if her entire existence was an infinitely advancing threshold - a kind of callus against the horrifying predictability of the human race. It took me years to see behind that thick skin, to the frightened child she was beneath it. It was only when she told me of the stars that I saw her fragility. When she spoke of her life in South Africa initially all I got were rehearsed descriptions of landscapes and culture. Even when she spoke of murders, soldiers, hate - she spoke of it in composure. It wasn't until I asked about her friends, on the night after she became my wife, that she softened. She called her star 'Voog', to mean guardian. She said although it never could protect her from him it made it easier for her to disappear while he raped her. She lay naked as she told me. Her nudity her way of boldly screaming that she was stronger than him. That she had won. I felt so privileged to be in the company of her titanic bravery. She said that by distracting herself she could ignore the pain he inflicted on her. She could pretend her and Voog were playing in the sky, that they were chasing angels together. Her friend kept her out of her body and allowed her to fly away from the reality of her childhood, so that when he eventually did cum she could smile at him. As she was a thousand miles away, in the company of all that the Heavens could bless her with.

I traced the lines between her brows as the scowl returned to her face. Knowing the vulnerability that lay beneath that scowl made me so much more grateful for it's existence. It allowed her to leave South Africa - allowed her to find me. A hardened shell for a beautifully damaged vessel as it crossed an ocean. As she fell asleep I looked at the orange haze that hung above our tranquil marital bed in the contemporary city of Los Angeles. The light drowned the stars in the way the darkness had once drowned her; but resilient in their nature they were both still breathing through it. I leant out the window and quietly I thanked Voog for saving my wife, for protecting my favorite star - I like to think she heard me.

Blush

She watched the color drain from my face like she was watching a stranger's bowel movement flush away. Break ups are often described as shit; I never thought I'd feel it so literally applied. She had a snarl distorting her lip, like it was hooked to a line that was teasing in a fish. A lip I'd so tenderly kissed previously, now surveying me with a nauseated pity. That snarl was teasing me, taunting me as if daring my face to crumple; daring my repulsive emotions to announce themselves across my features. I took the bait; lips shook and lids crumpled inexcusably as tears pricked my eyes. Still her snarl didn't waver. I think at one point I saw her skin crawl. Though it might have just been a blurring effect from the moisture that dowsed the accuracy of my vision.

In her defence I was stunned by my own weakness. My face folded like ancient origami, creased by the hands of a widowed man condemned to be alone until death. With each mortified tear, I shed from me a memory I thought we'd create together; the pieces of a life I thought we'd been contracted to build. Unfortunately our contract was void, I should have read the fine print. But as much as I wished to clutch on to her forever as she held my balled up fists in her apologetic hands I was yet again struck by how dry her palms were. The love struck pores freckling my convulsing mitts were never without a confident layer of sweat; a telling sign of my unyielding awe of her. She never perspired such devotion. I tried to pretend it didn't make me wonder if she didn't cherish our alliance. And even as the bitch's claws curled across my cheek to comfort me, I still felt her touch as feather light, fingers a lust stained satin - and longed to nuzzle across her chipped, dull nails; varnishing them with kisses.

I felt the hush of her departure before it occurred. It was the moment of tide before a new wave is formed, but after the swelling break has subsided. The faux sense of calm in a raging sea; that which hides the storm. In every inch by which she turned to leave she ripped one of the veins from my heart. The previously landlocked organ was free of constraints and as such was free to fall. I told my self, with a scream in my mind, that this could not possibly be the end. The denial cushioned my organ, so although it hit ribs as it fell to its death; it was less bruised than anticipated. The fruit on the top of the bunch. I told myself if she turned around then there was no doubt we were meant to be. Obsessively I counted the steps with which she left as if I were reciting a prayer. If she turns now she'll forgive me, now she'll take me back, if it's now we'll be together forever; or now and we'll be welded for life. Yet still she did not turn. Then a panic set in that I should of stopped her going, and a rage took me over. I screamed across to her retreating shadow; 'So this is the life you wanted?This solidarity is what you chose over me?'. My cowardice kept me from moving my feet, fleeing to her as I knew I wanted. Betrayed by the honesty of the woman I loved my body wouldn't let me move, it allowed only words. The words meant nothing, but with her reply she'd turn. With her reply she'd validate my superstitions. With her reply she'd fly back to my arms. Either for how she knew me too well or loved me too little; regardless, although I kept watching - she never did turn around.

Creature

It took you so long to realize that you weren't the same as the creatures. In appearance there'd be no telling you apart from them, and perhaps that's why it took until tonight to realize the truth. You were raised as one of them, and initially the shoe seemed to fit - but there wasn't any room for growth. The older you grew the further the two of you grew apart, the tighter that shoe became. You talked like them but you didn't think like them. There wasn't the right wiring within you. You'd try to comprehend their reasoning, their rationale - but it was like trying to don an umbrella in a blizzard; frustrating, and pointless. And oh how you did try. But throughout the years of flawed impressions self loathing birthed from your panicked ineptitude. You tried chemically inducing the feelings they spoke of, recklessly consuming synthetic cocktails of happiness, love, ego. None of it worked, and in the cold light of morning you found yourself even further away; stranded in an oar-less boat, thousands of miles from the shore of belonging.

It wasn't until you were crowded by them in this room that your epiphany struck. You were not to blame. You'd always felt you were in a forest, surrounded by featureless trees. They whispered around you in a gusty breeze, their chorus hitting you but their noise illegible. In the past you'd chase any murmur of camaraderie, run through the labyrinth for a glimmer of a recognizable reflection. Yet every hopeful corner you turned you'd be met with the same confusing dead ends. Your exhausted heart could no longer take the inevitable disappointment. It was time you accepted who you were, and stopped trying to be human. So it was there, surrounded by a sociable cluster of your supposed friends, that you realized you were entirely alone. Your forest became a barren meadow, as you abandoned your faith in rescue. The solitude struck you deeply. Without the protection of your trees you were chilled to the bone with an unyielding loneliness. You thanked Brian for having you, picked up your coat, and left. And as you allowed the cold of the December night to embrace you, akin through the pathetic fallacy of your dystopia, you hoped to god no one ever noticed what kind of creature you really were. 

Grotesque

The moon peaked through the thin curtains. Playfully breathing it's light onto them, flirting gaily from the sky. They were coiled like ivy climbing a branch. Equally as poisonous, equally as lethal. The air was cool. The death of a summer day. The birth of a new one yet to rise with the glorious August sun. Her skin sprouted goosebumps and her fragile body shook quietly. He wrapped his arms around her tighter - shielding her from the newly spawned sinister chill. The moon continued to watch, happily assessing the lovers as they lay stagnant as corpses - melting into one another in the low heat of the night. He coiled his finger across her skin, spelling out silent declarations of love he was too proud to allow past his chewn up lips. She pretended she couldn't feel the letters as they lightly proclaimed themselves on her flesh. She wished his soft touch was a knife; carving the words into her so she could never forget them. A harsh bloody reminder of her alliance, one that couldn't be locked away in the company of another. She wished he would throw her. Beat her. Kill her. All befitting punishments for her infidelity. But his cautious touch was a greater penance. His devotion tortured her more effectively than a million whips across her back. He knew what he was doing. He smiled as his caress scathed her flesh. The moon hid behind a cloud. Its eyes swam with pain. Unable to deal with the duplicitous longings of the damaged girl as she lay happily in his arms; so afraid of letting him go that sometimes she caught herself breaking the skin of his back with her nails, as she clung on to him so desperately. His touch a necessary distraction. It muffled the screaming in her mind. But somewhere beneath the voices she loved him as was expected. In the honest way a girl loves her boy. That tiny rush of feeling injected her with a slither of hope, lead her to believe she was functional. How little he knew how he kept her alive. The moon swam in the empty black sky. The clouds ran from it in a vindictive feat to make the moon watch. It wept as it saw them. Their tryst a pyrrhic battle by which neither would survive un-wounded, and no clear victor would ever be crowned. Only victims. Two bodies, but years of blood shed between them. Their hearts having been ripped apart too many times. The moon couldn't bare the horror. It had once been so fond of the lovers, so proud. Now it feared them. Their dependency and their deceit. The moon moved its eyes. It would rather see eternal darkness than have to observe humanity, and withstand the cruelty of jealous love.

Did he hear the sound her shoelaces made, as they dragged across his floor? Her feet wouldn't let her stay in his embrace. They crept to the door before he could even comprehend the sun. They flew so quickly. Their silent ghostly float zooming her away from him. The sun itself couldn't move as fast. With the moon gone their protective night had ended, their sadistic games concluded with it. Instead they were forced to show their real longing, their vulnerable devotion. Without their conscious minds to protect them they slipped into a loving embrace. Unable to spite each other with a stiffened arm or a turned back. In the empty bland hint of dusk, with no sky to watch them through the grey, they moved to each others like poles of a magnet. Slowly, strongly - inevitably. 

In the few hours before the appearance of sun - the hours that few knew; just the guilty and the broken, the milk men and the whores - they were able to show who they were, before they became grotesque.

The sun was afraid to rise. It wanted to keep them in the dark, allow them a few stolen minutes of unconscious perfection before the truth eroded their ignorance and her feet ran from its newly born reality. Her unfaithful nature was burning letters into her heart, but no scarlet 'A' appeared in a bloody crest. Instead; his name seeped slowly - like a gash on a shaven face it oozed, then ran seemingly forever. She lost so much blood from that wound she could barely stand. She would continue that way until it stopped flowing to her carved organ. 

But she never wanted it to stop. She never wanted to forget his name. To stop feeling his pain. So in the true spirit of masochism she looked back at his peaceful form. Breathed in his innocence as she tried to keep up the illusion of hers. She ran from the sun to keep him in the dark. But he heard her shoelaces against his floor. He heard it every morning.

He kept his eyes shut tight though, in protest to the sun. For he never wanted to hate her. But he couldn't feign naivety away from their delicate senseless night. The part of him that loved her despised the sun. That part wished to glue his eyes shut, dose them in chemicals or carve them with knives. Then he could never allow the glow of the star to illuminate his daybreak. The sun blazed that day, to apologize for the truth it had shown them. Not knowing that its kind gesture was frying the skin from their bones. 

Silence

He was a knife to my chest that kept on bleeding. I glued the wounds with all the Pritt Stick I could gather but the blood never ceased to flow. Every laugh ripped the gashes apart, and as the memories seeped out the joy I felt for a fleeting ignorant second was laced - laced with the toxic poison of my grief. His ghost became my shadow, I couldn't escape it. It followed me always, and grew with the night, stretching and stretching until the sun ran from it. The light kindly left me to be alone, to pull my self together and carry on; but I never was, and so I never could. The silence screamed at me - the deafening scream of absolute nothing. No breathing to punctuate it, no honey drenched whisper to weave across it. Nothing. In that silence his smile stayed. Its beauty corrupted by the mutating dark, twisting into a vicious snarl as my memory of its ethereal purity faded. Instead his smile mocked me, taunted me - hated me. My boy became a cancer. His memory fed on me until I died. He killed me a thousand times a day. Every time I allowed myself to forget him, his memory would smirk and stab once more. My organs so mangled they healed around the knives, forming callus skin that could never be torn again. Except by him. Always by him. So I will be forced to breathe through my trauma, until he wrenches my injuries apart for the final time. Then I will claw into my skin, shred it to the bone and as I am drained of life, let my own smile transfigure -as I finally join him in the silence.