Bitter\Sweet

         

Bitter\Sweet

Her nervousness was clear as she slipped into the booth opposite the young woman, clutching her bulky messenger bag in front of her chest and stomach. She fidgeted several times, finding it impossible to sit comfortably, all the while avoiding her direct eye contact. She nodded and smiled timidly.

“It’s about time,” Cassidy smiled wickedly, straw of water halfway in her lips. She gazed at her unabashedly, surveying every inch of her “friend”.

“Please, stay a while,” she said, gesturing to the girl’s bag.

Cara nodded again, lips tight, and pulled the bag over her shoulder and placed it on her side, pressing it against the wall. She sighed curtly.

“I don’t really know why I’m here,” she admitted, stamping her palms against the vinyl cushion of her seat. Her ankles and knees were strained together beneath the table.

“It’s not really like me to even take a chance like this. But I’m sure…you already knew that.”

Cassidy’s long, chestnut hair slid down her shoulders as she grinned. She took a short sip of water and set the glass aside, then unwrapped a stick of gum and began to chew on it thoughtfully.

“Cara, my dear, it would alarm you to know just what I know.” Her gaze was bright and intimidating and ruthless. “But something tells me, that you know just as much as I do.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly as she stared at her, giving Cara a visible chill.

“Do you ladies know what you want?” A waiter asked, lingering suddenly at the edge of the table. Cassidy’s eyes perked and she met the waiter’s eyes, lashes fluttering and head tilted to the side.

“I’ll just have a coffee for now,” she said sweetly, voice laced with flirtation and shoulders rolled back so that her coiled hair fell down in waves.

The waiter smiled back, sheepishly at first, eyes falling to his notepad, then back up to hers when he realized she was still staring at him.

“And for you, miss?”

Cara folded the menu in half and inched it toward the end of the table, eyes fixed on its curling edges.

“I’ll have the same,” she started, voice low and nearly breaking. “With milk, please.”

“No problem,” he concluded, collecting their menus, and smiling once again when he noticed Cassidy eyeing the logo on his shirt, or perhaps his chest, or biceps. And she continued to stare, unapologetically, as he walked away and left them with a generous view of his backside.

“A little obvious, don’t you think?” Cara pointed out.

“Oh please,” she retorted, “obvious is the only thing that gets through to guys.”

A moment later the waiter returned with their coffees, setting the drinks down before them cautiously and placing the silver tin of milk by Cara.

“Anything else I could get for you ladies?”

Cara began to shake her head, lips parting.

“—No, we’re fine for now, thanks sweetie.”

And she smiled as his eyes glowed at her, and he pushed a tuft of napkins toward her cup.

“…Well if there’s anything you need from me, let me know.”

And he winked and turned to walk away.

“Gotta hand it to ya,” Cara started, watching Cassidy unroll the torn piece of paper hiding beneath the napkins. His phone number. “The obvious thing seems to work.”

She laughed, wad of gum rolling in her mouth.

“Yeah,” she said, scanning the piece of paper. “Too bad he’s nowhere near my type.” And she brought the paper to her lips with one hand and used it to dispose of her gum. Cara smiled, scoffing.

They both sipped their coffee, Cara’s light with sugar, and Cassidy’s black and harsh. They sat in silence for a moment, peering occasionally towards the window where the sun was beginning to fall outside, or the long, horizontal mirrors that hung opposite them. Then their eyes found each other, as if by accident.

“You know me well enough to know that I don’t like to waste time,” Cassidy said, voice somewhat hushed, cup set on her plate, halfway drained. “You either want this or you don’t. So are you gonna make a choice or not?”

Cara sighed and closed her eyes. She pushed her emptied cup away from her.

“I don’t know,” she said with finality. “I just know that, lately, it’s been…so…”

“Boring?” she offered, sarcastic cock to her eyebrows.

She sighed again, looking away.

“You could say that. Look Cassidy,”

“—Call me Cassie,” she said.

Her eyes flickered towards her.

“Look, Cassie,” she corrected. “I’m not like you. I can’t just go around living my life doing whatever I want and not feeling responsible for the consequences. I feel, I care. It’s what human beings do, generally. We care about other human beings.”

Cassie’s eyes hardened and seemed to turn blacker than they were.

“And how far has that gotten you?” she said smoothly, head tilted once again, eyeing Cara’s slicked back hair, neatly pulled away from her face and bangs pinned in a sophisticated wave on her head.

“I mean, come on. You’re in your mid-twenties and what have you really done? And I’m not talking about academics,” she said, waving her off. “Or work. Look at you. You’re oozing with boredom, with lackluster. I can smell it from over here. You’re tired--no, exhausted, from the repetitive monotony of routine. Admit it.”

She bit her bottom lip and chewed it for a moment, before looking at her.

“Exactly. And that’s why I’ve come to you for help.” She brought her eyes to Cassie’s and stared at her, and this time did not break her gaze.

“But let me make one thing clear,” Cara began, voice even and low. “I cannot, and will not, harm another human being. You will never turn me into that, Cassie. No matter how far off the edge I’ve gone.”

They glared at each other for several moments.

“I’m not like you.”

Cassie smiled her wicked smile.

“Oh, I think you are.” And she sat back, confident, gaze unbending and unrelenting. “You just don’t know it yet.” She slipped her hands behind her head, elbows pointed in the air. “But I guess…we’ll see.”

The two women stared at each other, unblinking, unyielding, and identical.

“Yes,” Cara answered, watching the face that looked so much like hers, yet couldn’t be more different. “We’ll see.”

Prologue

(written in 2009)

The healer took me in her arms and held me to her chest, eyes shut and cries stifled. I was uncertain as to which of us was frightened more, as I trembled in cold fear when she tried to steady me in a tight, comforting hold that only my mother could provide.

As her eyes were shut and warm tears were leaking slowly from them, mine were frozen in a wide stare, jumping slightly from side to side due to the short, jerky movements of my body. My shoulders were pinned down, and I could not feel where my arms were; if they were glued heavily to my sides or if they were wrapped around her body I could not tell—I was numb.

I felt her swallow, lips pressing together then releasing, jaw loose and pained, brow deepening without control.

She didn't speak.

She just held me, body swaying softly, so soft and smooth that I could not remember when the swaying began.

I felt my body then moving with her, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, as she swayed and swayed, and then began to dance. My mother and I danced, in the warm glow of our home, clinging to the only comfort we had—each other.

I would remember these moments for the rest of my days, those dances with my mother.

And when my father died I danced with him too, perhaps to try and give him an ounce of the comfort that my mother had once given me, when I killed him.

I can still see the blinding lights, the beautiful powder snow that had freshly fallen from a storm the night before.

And my half-naked body that was dragged to its cold, biting surface.

I remember the smell of burning wood, the sound of cries and pleading, the crackling of broken glass.

I can still taste the forgiving liquid, feel the thickness of the prayer candle; the way I swooned and swirled when I went to light it, the way I knelt over and surrendered myself to the floor to pray.

I can feel the tears that I didn't cry, the desperate fear that I’d created; the fear that I had been waiting for, for so very long.

The deafening music, the resonating screams.

 I held him at the spine and danced, danced with the father whom I hated but loved so obediently.

The father who destroyed everything human in me, who at last killed my mother after years of torment, and later stole from me what I needed most to finally be whole.

But it was alright.

Because now that he is gone, seven years later, I have finally found a way to have what I was always missing.

Seven years later, in his echoing absence that is more deceitful than most, I have found a way to be with what I couldn't live without.

I have finally found a way to become whole.

Master’s Puppet

(I was requested to write this piece as fan-fiction. It is based off of the brilliant show Sherlock, and is written in the perspective of Jim Moriarty. Go BBC!)


You need me, or you’re nothing.

I stare, eyes frozen, into the reflection of myself

Able only to see his face

He looks lost, and far away

Hopeless, without direction.

He needed me.

Or he was nothing.

I remembered him well, from long ago.

I, the aged, demented child                                                                                     

And he, like me

Only human.

I wanted blood and lusted for it

I needed it in my veins for mine,

Mine were made of ice.

He was curious then,

Not yet a dejected cynic.

A child he was, and only just

A child.

And even then I knew

That it would be his weakness

And from there a seed was planted

Even then I knew

That someday

I could break him.

How easily he would fall

Would fly away and soar

To land in irreversible glory

I would strip him of everything that he was

And make him nothing more

Than just a child.

In my silence I ask and wonder

Just why he makes me fury

And the answer

to my most favorite riddle

It comes to me

In the form of a song.

A song that has no ending

Only loops

With twists and coils that make me desperate

Like folds and crevices of a human brain

Swelling

Like a pounding heart

Sweating,

Pulsing,

Profuse,

On my face

In my eyes, I see,

Only I see him.

Looking back at me

With eyes that know the light

But will never truly know

How to penetrate my darkness.

I hate him

My blood, it boils,

My bones, they ache

From the day I knew him then

From the age I knew him when

I knew

I knew

That he, a child,

And I, was not.

I stare, unable to blink

At the memory that begins to twist

The eyes, they laugh

And there he is

Alive

And bright

And will never know

My torment.

I see the creases in his brain

I know what gives him pleasure, pain,

And pain that he will have

When I deliver

Make him soar, and fly,

Oh he will know

Just what I see.

Do not taunt me, Sherlock,

You simple beast

The clock is churning

The blood is ticking

And here, we are, together

At last

Will you surrender, to me?

Become part of me, and one with me?

You need me.

Or you’re nothing.

He throws his head back and he laughs

Mocking me

Forever.

And the sweat it aches

And the anger boils

And I snap

And there he is

Hand in mine

Eyes and breath so close to mine

That I can smell his soul

I love him

Yet he will never know

Of the torment that he gives me.

Sherlock, I whisper,

Surrender to me

Be, me.

Bless you,

Bless you, Sherlock Holmes

For at last you have freed me

Made me soar

Like an angel,

At your side

Now

Forever

At last.

At last.

At last, I can breathe again.  

7/17/13

The Dandelion

 When I was young I used to play with dandelions,

Dancing in the wind

Floating on streams of air that, like music, it played in my ear.

I held a finger to the spore

And made a wish that I'd forget

As soon as childhood went away, but wished it nonetheless

And like butterflies it sailed away, fluttered and played,

Tumbled and swayed

To change a choice that I would make

To hate or love, or stay an age

Each wind would pass me through and through,

And make me question

Only everything that I was

Am

Would ever be

And years later here I am

Among the same trees, same field,

Same dancing family of petals and leaves

Flowers and spores,

And I made a wish this time

To remember who I was

Had always been

Not knowing that I had only wished when I was younger

To know what it was like

To be the age that I am now.

12/11/11

Carly's Song

Face in my hands
Eyes on the floor,
Here I am again, I think
Alone with the thoughts of who I used to be
That I have been afraid to face
For quite some time.
But your words
On notes of a piano playing
Have inspired me just enough
To look at all that I've forgotten.
The music, flowing like tears
On the skin of a lonely child alone
in a darkened room of a home
in a dream with walls distorted,
Doors and windows
Just not where they should be
And the only thing that is still in place
Is the mirror that sits before me,
My younger self,
The child,
The child that did not understand.
I am nine
And I am scared.
Ashes black as tar float and drift throughout the air,
And mask the scent of coming hopelessness,
The childhood jolt of premature confusion
Years of psychological stress and damage
All condensed into one tiny bathroom
Where the stone body sat
Nose pointing at the floor
A string of mucus dripping down
Thick as rope,
Frozen in time,
Like his body,
And although I know he is dead
Still I call his name.
Papa--I say,
Louder each time
And I am frustrated when he does not answer back
Like he is playing a game
The way he always did.
I am nineteen
And my aunt and I are not speaking.
The anger intense
But not so much as the bitter spite
I even feel when she falls ill.
And I thought, just maybe, she would get better
Like once she had before
I was wrong, again,
And here I am,
In the hospital room
Holding her tiny freckled hand in mine,
Listening to the beeps and hums
Of artificial breathing
There she is, I think,
How different she looks now
The warmth her eyes once knew is gone
Replaced only by a dark vacancy
And I place a hand to her brain
Which I can feel is already gone
But I try to save her, anyway,
In vain.
I am 22
And I feel the weight of my mistakes
Burden onto my back like the world,
That childhood has not forgiven me
Here I am again,
Here I am,
I cannot go back to the way I was
But that voice just makes it so easy
To trick me into believing
That after all this time
Still I am nothing.
Day after day, every passing moment,
I am who I used to be
But fight against it,
Struggle, sweat, and cry
Against that booming voice
That tells me to be afraid.
And year after year
As if by miracle alone the voice begins to quiet
And leave me with my own thoughts
Of who I want to be
Not who I used to be
And I stand before a mirror
That I had once stood before in a dream
Of a distorted self,
A suffering mind that never could hold onto childhood
That from that day of falling ashes
And flowing sadness
The self that is staring back at my reflection
Is smiling
For many years now smiling
Shadows of my dimming memories dancing in my eyes, like ice,
I press a hand to my old reflection
Here I am again, I think.
Here I am again.

Trials

You cannot ask a blind man to see,
Nor a child to understand.
When the effort is pointless,
And your actions void of meaning.
So I focus my mind unto a different place,
One that promises at least an ounce of hope,
A glimmer of light in a darkness path
Because I know when I am fighting a losing battle
I know when a prayer is unanswered
And I know when wisdom is my only option
To realize that what I cannot control,
What is beyond my grasp,
Is only meant to be that way,
To stay that way.
So I follow a different trail
And although I cannot see the end
Past all the bending trees and testing earth,
I know that I am safe,
And blessed enough
To take another step.

Ghost

He makes me cold, so incredibly fucking cold,
In the most horrible way quite possible,
My fingers are sticks of frozen ice
As the ghost flows his way past me,
Sometimes right through me,
Smirking as he does it,
As if he plays this sort of game all the time
But I am the only one who actually feels him 
So he takes note of this, and amuses himself,
The way my spine freezes up,
And my neck goes cold,
And my speech gets all stuttery and awkward-sounding,
I don't think it’s very funny at all, Mr. Ghost, Sir,
Because you're crossing a thin line here.
And you've forgotten just how easily
I can turn on all the lights,
And reveal to the world
That you aren't really dead.