to get born, your body makes a pact with death; from that moment, all it tries to do is cheat.
I will never recover from living.
As I walk through the swamp among the cypresses and reeds and milkweed, the earth squelches beneath my hooves. Around me, the chorus of birds and frogs seems deafening; alone, the clicks, chimes, and songs are ethereal.
And yet; I am not haunted by the shadows that dance between the cypresses, but by the life I walked through as a warrior, a man, a ghost. My mind fixates not on my surrounding, but other, less tangible thoughts. I think: the afterlife, when she comes for me, will not be a veil of darkness or sleep. And when she comes—yes, Death is a woman, sweet and tender or volatile and scorned—she will not deliver me peace, judgement, or justice but the breaths between days, the void of what was spoken and what was meant, what was acted upon and what was felt.
In a woman’s way, I am sure Death knows the only punishment I am worthy of. And that is to exist suspended between who I am, and who I should have been—what I want, and what I can never have—what I believe, and what I act upon—what I think, and what I feel—what I say, and what I do—
Elena did not save me from anything. I hear her well before I see her. No one else would look to find me; no one else would succeed.
I wonder if she can feel me from miles away. If I am a black hole her sunshine can be devoured by; if the echo of my anger, discontent, and numbness is something that acts as a salve, or a wound.
I am already dead, between all these heartbeats, thoughts, wants, needs, failures, triumphs.
Torix, you look—well.
The swamp responds in a chorus of crickets and birds and a sordid summer heat that feels alive.
Elena never brought me back. (Not the pieces that mattered). What is left turns to regard her.
A change of scenery can be good for the soul, let us explore today. I let my face smile, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. Even when her cheek presses against my shoulder (this is a moment, an intangible moment, gone before truly felt; a moment I will recollect, and remember, and come back to as if it belongs elsewhere, to a novel, a newspaper, a poem, a diary).
Not to me.
Never to me.
And then she grins, wildly, and flicks droplets of water in my direction. I narrowly dodged them, ignoring the sharp twinge of pain in my neck and shoulder. The wounds, though jagged, have been sewn and kept clean. They are healing, though nothing else is.
“Queen Elena,” I say, in a voice both playful and snide. “Why order me as my doctor when you can order me as a Sovereign?”
I do not hide the way my teeth come to fine, bright points in a smile that belong’s to a wolf’s mouth.
“Walk with me then,” I say, half challenge and half invitation. I turn from her, to continue down the trail where I had lost my thoughts so readily.
I glance at her, coy and sharp. “She asked me to run away with her, you know. The girl I loved. Boudika.” I laugh; a raw, rugged thing. “I had sentenced her to death and—when I visited her the night before her condemnation—well, she… she asked me to run away with her.”
I fix her with my eyes. The truth is something I never promised her; but I wonder how I can continue to live in this life without facing it, without, at least once, looking it in the eyes. “And I would have. That’s the thing; I would have, if she had been someone I could love. If she had been a man.”
The milkweed around us is blooming bright purple; and on the narrow trail, we are shoulder-to-shoulder, her warm against my sea-chilled skin.
“I guess that’s just the way of it, you know? I just don’t think—I just don’t know how to move past those moments, the ones where your entire life pauses, where your entire life takes a breath and holds it.” I glance at her then, a mirror of the expression she had worn only seconds before; all wild, all mischief.
And a little bit unhinged. A little bit past giving a fuck.
"Would you run away with me, Elena? If I asked? Leave all this behind?" As if to seal the question, I use my leonine tail to flick water up and at her.
The fine spray catches the light; and I see her, all gold and her eyes, all blue, and I wonder if this moment is not already dead. Already gone. The droplets hit. The water breaks apart.
And Boudika's name is a dead thing between us.
As I walk through the swamp among the cypresses and reeds and milkweed, the earth squelches beneath my hooves. Around me, the chorus of birds and frogs seems deafening; alone, the clicks, chimes, and songs are ethereal.
And yet; I am not haunted by the shadows that dance between the cypresses, but by the life I walked through as a warrior, a man, a ghost. My mind fixates not on my surrounding, but other, less tangible thoughts. I think: the afterlife, when she comes for me, will not be a veil of darkness or sleep. And when she comes—yes, Death is a woman, sweet and tender or volatile and scorned—she will not deliver me peace, judgement, or justice but the breaths between days, the void of what was spoken and what was meant, what was acted upon and what was felt.
In a woman’s way, I am sure Death knows the only punishment I am worthy of. And that is to exist suspended between who I am, and who I should have been—what I want, and what I can never have—what I believe, and what I act upon—what I think, and what I feel—what I say, and what I do—
Elena did not save me from anything. I hear her well before I see her. No one else would look to find me; no one else would succeed.
I wonder if she can feel me from miles away. If I am a black hole her sunshine can be devoured by; if the echo of my anger, discontent, and numbness is something that acts as a salve, or a wound.
I am already dead, between all these heartbeats, thoughts, wants, needs, failures, triumphs.
Torix, you look—well.
The swamp responds in a chorus of crickets and birds and a sordid summer heat that feels alive.
Elena never brought me back. (Not the pieces that mattered). What is left turns to regard her.
A change of scenery can be good for the soul, let us explore today. I let my face smile, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. Even when her cheek presses against my shoulder (this is a moment, an intangible moment, gone before truly felt; a moment I will recollect, and remember, and come back to as if it belongs elsewhere, to a novel, a newspaper, a poem, a diary).
Not to me.
Never to me.
And then she grins, wildly, and flicks droplets of water in my direction. I narrowly dodged them, ignoring the sharp twinge of pain in my neck and shoulder. The wounds, though jagged, have been sewn and kept clean. They are healing, though nothing else is.
“Queen Elena,” I say, in a voice both playful and snide. “Why order me as my doctor when you can order me as a Sovereign?”
I do not hide the way my teeth come to fine, bright points in a smile that belong’s to a wolf’s mouth.
“Walk with me then,” I say, half challenge and half invitation. I turn from her, to continue down the trail where I had lost my thoughts so readily.
I glance at her, coy and sharp. “She asked me to run away with her, you know. The girl I loved. Boudika.” I laugh; a raw, rugged thing. “I had sentenced her to death and—when I visited her the night before her condemnation—well, she… she asked me to run away with her.”
I fix her with my eyes. The truth is something I never promised her; but I wonder how I can continue to live in this life without facing it, without, at least once, looking it in the eyes. “And I would have. That’s the thing; I would have, if she had been someone I could love. If she had been a man.”
The milkweed around us is blooming bright purple; and on the narrow trail, we are shoulder-to-shoulder, her warm against my sea-chilled skin.
“I guess that’s just the way of it, you know? I just don’t think—I just don’t know how to move past those moments, the ones where your entire life pauses, where your entire life takes a breath and holds it.” I glance at her then, a mirror of the expression she had worn only seconds before; all wild, all mischief.
And a little bit unhinged. A little bit past giving a fuck.
"Would you run away with me, Elena? If I asked? Leave all this behind?" As if to seal the question, I use my leonine tail to flick water up and at her.
The fine spray catches the light; and I see her, all gold and her eyes, all blue, and I wonder if this moment is not already dead. Already gone. The droplets hit. The water breaks apart.
And Boudika's name is a dead thing between us.
