IF I WENT TO HELL WOULD I
care, would it really be different from heaven? No / I don't know what I'm saying, these aren't my answers. / I don't care about being alive -☼
For what it is worth: she has to take her life in small victories, lately.
For what it is worth: she has not fallen apart entirely, yet, no matter how desperately she has longed to. (That is not an option, and she knows it.)
For what it is worth: she resents this situation. (She hopes that she does not resent the children growing inside of her.) Sometimes – most of the time – she resents the sun god for it. Sometimes she manages to settle her thoughts for long enough to remind herself that the divine is not always explicable, but the excuse feels less defensible every time she tries to force it down her own throat.
For what it is worth: she does not want to resent Solis. He is her longest and oldest companion, the only one who has always lingered at her side, however apathetic. But maybe that is delusion, too. She is sure that her prayers have meant nothing to him, that her begging has more often than not fallen upon deaf ears. And now – this. Sometimes, she wishes that he would appear before her, so she could plunge Alshamtueur into the gilded curve of his chest. (He would kill her for the transgression.) Sometimes, she only wants to beg for answers. Sometimes she wants to collapse to the ground before his statue and ask him why, why, why, to plead for him to give some greater meaning or name to her suffering.
She used to hope that there was a point to rampant cruelty, to thoughtless violence, to every lingering horror that she had experienced; she used to console herself by telling herself that there would be some end to it, that, eventually, she would wake up one morning and realize that all of her suffering had been in service of some higher purpose. It was naïve or arrogant or narcissistic or desperate, and she feels like a fool for ever having believed it now. There is only a greater purpose when it is given; only in songs, or in poems, or in fables.
She is simply unlucky; or inadequate. Not a victim entire, or the catalyst of her own destruction.
She lingers in the shallows, feeling comedic. Her stomach is swollen, and simply looking at the reflection of it in the water makes her want to shatter the clear surface like a mirror. (Sometimes she loathes herself less, and sometimes she can nearly accept it, though she can never understand it. She tells herself that she must keep that in mind; that she can’t go on breaking things, whether she means to or not.) Alshamtueur hangs at her side, omnipresent, sizzling lowly with urges that she wouldn’t dare put a name to; she has long grown incapable of fitting her armor, but it doesn’t matter. She is more than capable of protecting herself without it.
She is more than capable of protecting herself without moving a muscle, without ever raising her sword – though it is the most overtly violent part of her.
(More than usual, lately, Seraphina finds herself longing to have been something else. She longs to have lived a life as a scholar or a doctor instead of a soldier, a lifetime where she was allowed to hold a pen in the place of a flaming sword. She wishes that she had never been a queen; she wishes that she had never even been an emissary, no matter what it might have cost her. She wishes that she could remember her mother, that she had parents in the place of a violent warden, perhaps even that she had siblings. She wishes that she had been kinder, that she had realized that she was lonely years ago, that she had dodged the swing of that bear claw, like she had dodged a hundred thousand strikes before-
She used to think that her cold demeanor and apathy were useful.
Most of all, she longs to turn herself into a woman who would have been happy with this blessing; perhaps a woman who chose to have children, not a woman who was subject to the whims of a fickle god.
All of it is futile. She knows better than to entertain the thought.)
Ereshkigal has left her to her longing, though she can sense that she is not far, and, in the back of her head, she can hear a faint, terrible crunching. She must have gone back for that rotting gazelle they’d passed earlier; the thought is nearly nauseating, but she doesn’t flinch.
Instead – she pulls herself from the perfect blue of the water and onto the bank, the wet, metallic gleam of her coat like the glint of cold steel in the sun.
@syndicate || for whomstever || alice notley, "fill out questionnaire for good"
Sera || Eresh
care, would it really be different from heaven? No / I don't know what I'm saying, these aren't my answers. / I don't care about being alive -☼
For what it is worth: she has to take her life in small victories, lately.
For what it is worth: she has not fallen apart entirely, yet, no matter how desperately she has longed to. (That is not an option, and she knows it.)
For what it is worth: she resents this situation. (She hopes that she does not resent the children growing inside of her.) Sometimes – most of the time – she resents the sun god for it. Sometimes she manages to settle her thoughts for long enough to remind herself that the divine is not always explicable, but the excuse feels less defensible every time she tries to force it down her own throat.
For what it is worth: she does not want to resent Solis. He is her longest and oldest companion, the only one who has always lingered at her side, however apathetic. But maybe that is delusion, too. She is sure that her prayers have meant nothing to him, that her begging has more often than not fallen upon deaf ears. And now – this. Sometimes, she wishes that he would appear before her, so she could plunge Alshamtueur into the gilded curve of his chest. (He would kill her for the transgression.) Sometimes, she only wants to beg for answers. Sometimes she wants to collapse to the ground before his statue and ask him why, why, why, to plead for him to give some greater meaning or name to her suffering.
She used to hope that there was a point to rampant cruelty, to thoughtless violence, to every lingering horror that she had experienced; she used to console herself by telling herself that there would be some end to it, that, eventually, she would wake up one morning and realize that all of her suffering had been in service of some higher purpose. It was naïve or arrogant or narcissistic or desperate, and she feels like a fool for ever having believed it now. There is only a greater purpose when it is given; only in songs, or in poems, or in fables.
She is simply unlucky; or inadequate. Not a victim entire, or the catalyst of her own destruction.
She lingers in the shallows, feeling comedic. Her stomach is swollen, and simply looking at the reflection of it in the water makes her want to shatter the clear surface like a mirror. (Sometimes she loathes herself less, and sometimes she can nearly accept it, though she can never understand it. She tells herself that she must keep that in mind; that she can’t go on breaking things, whether she means to or not.) Alshamtueur hangs at her side, omnipresent, sizzling lowly with urges that she wouldn’t dare put a name to; she has long grown incapable of fitting her armor, but it doesn’t matter. She is more than capable of protecting herself without it.
She is more than capable of protecting herself without moving a muscle, without ever raising her sword – though it is the most overtly violent part of her.
(More than usual, lately, Seraphina finds herself longing to have been something else. She longs to have lived a life as a scholar or a doctor instead of a soldier, a lifetime where she was allowed to hold a pen in the place of a flaming sword. She wishes that she had never been a queen; she wishes that she had never even been an emissary, no matter what it might have cost her. She wishes that she could remember her mother, that she had parents in the place of a violent warden, perhaps even that she had siblings. She wishes that she had been kinder, that she had realized that she was lonely years ago, that she had dodged the swing of that bear claw, like she had dodged a hundred thousand strikes before-
She used to think that her cold demeanor and apathy were useful.
Most of all, she longs to turn herself into a woman who would have been happy with this blessing; perhaps a woman who chose to have children, not a woman who was subject to the whims of a fickle god.
All of it is futile. She knows better than to entertain the thought.)
Ereshkigal has left her to her longing, though she can sense that she is not far, and, in the back of her head, she can hear a faint, terrible crunching. She must have gone back for that rotting gazelle they’d passed earlier; the thought is nearly nauseating, but she doesn’t flinch.
Instead – she pulls herself from the perfect blue of the water and onto the bank, the wet, metallic gleam of her coat like the glint of cold steel in the sun.
@
Sera || Eresh
I'M IN A ROOM MADE OUT OF MIRRORSand there's no way to escape the violence of a girl against herself.☼please tag Sera! contact is encouraged, short of violence
