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The Difference
The texture is dry,
like running my tongue against wet sandpaper,
until the roll of the wet food balls up on my tongue.
Pushing it away,
I try to repress the internal gag.
This must be what it means to be older.
To lose the sensation of what should be an enjoyable small meal.
Only for it to make me regret everything that has to do with this texture.
The only reprieve is the sugar crunch of compressed dyed sugar in each bite.
I swore that my childhood made this taste much better.
I tried to cling onto that, to will the memory forward as if it might make the texture and flavor come into one.
And then I remembered something.
Recipes are a potion in themself.
A bottled flavor and texture that could either become the thing of nightmares,
or the thing of bliss.
And here I was, acknowledging how water in a recipe could never replace milk.
Just like oil is no substitute for butter, and that's all the difference.
It's what makes the cereal taste bland,
what makes the texture hard to blend.
And when I remember something tastes off,
I know it has everything to do with what was replaced.
What was changed.
What was lessened to a degree to cut corners and costs where need be.
We are all operating in different voids,
expressing our descent on the minor differences.
On the change of the layouts of aging stores.
Of the refresh of products that once started to mold.
To keep our eyes moving, or minds going.
For if they didn't, we'd break into a routine.
Of the dog walking the barn,
and when it was long gone,
we'd walk around instead of across it out of sheer memory.
There is the difference.
There is a sort of mold, that our body naturally molds to,
like we're meant to settle in as we get old.
Habits, tricks, tastes, and ticks.
We're all eventually settling in, to find our place within a shelf,
along a wall, maybe driving ourselves into a spiral of insanity
as if that might not be a stationary place just like them all.
We are no different.
But we are not all the same.
We are the taste of memories, of experiences one alongside another.
Twins, and singles. All the same.
But not.
We are not one.
But we are one in the same.
Human.
The experience.
The everlasting existence.
Imprinting on our tiny differences.
Until someone notices our impression.
Our difference.
Fuel
One... Two. Close my eyes.
Cover the black canvas with a new surprise.
Paint the sky blue, wave your hand over it with streaks of whitened blue
til' flecks of black specs dot the horizon and sing me wonderous tunes.
Dull me to sleep, cast the blue sky a hazy pink.
Wrap me in mountains, cold and gray.
Let the brown soil rinse away.
Wrestle back my wicked thoughts.
Wrangle down, the 'man' society's wrought.
Three... Four. Open my eyes.
Release I'm no longer awake because the skies...
Are littered in stars, in hues of pinks and greens. Of memories long past,
until the demon sings. Sings my name, pursed on wrinkling lips.
Shorn short hair, in gray odd wisps. Wicked, evil, spiteful witch.
Setting up her little picket fence.
And there she might have, her generational surprise.
The one with matching all green eyes.
Smile pretty, a devil's sin. Preach the words of 'God' and blame her sin.
No recollection of an apology, somehow there here to steal from me.
Taking, grasping, tugging so.
Yanking away, my work and more.
Claiming it all for their greedy hands,
shoveling my good deeds and work down until gagging on hems.
Hue is a color, and the color is bleak.
Why do they steal from me only in my sleep?
It's hard to believe, something so long gone crosses distances to drown me in its pond.
Yet here I am, until I can force the my eyes open to release that reality is long gone.
Lecher
Pouring salt,
rub the skin as if it might remove the excess.
And then, feeling for the smoothness that lay within.
Sprinkles of sugar,
excess of sweetness too good for the times of later dates.
And then, lick the icing off until it burns down the throat.
She is the thing of blackened dreams.
The mental anguish she brings is a burn that can't be reprieved.
Torturous agony, she brings on again. Tempting me, tempting me until I come undone.
Bleed into me.
Bleed the full length of your needs into me.
Despite the desire stretching long into my belly, dig into me.
Take me on the ride I know you never meant it to be.
And I can hear her, hear her sing to me.
Break my heart, bend me over backwards to bring her into me.
She wants to be my muse.
And I want to tell her no, but the word is used against me.
Playing on her vengeance so...
Bleed into me.
Bleed the full length of your desires into me.
Despite the gnawing ache of desire, pouring from your soul, dig into me.
Take me on the ride I know you unintentionally paved for me.
Twisties
There copper tang in my mouth reminded me how I couldn't remember when I ate last. And with the unsavory taste coating my tongue, I placed a hand over my stomach, feeling the ache of hunger come up. I knew I had missed one too many meals. Couldn't remember when I last drank anything, not even water. And every idea of food or water sounded so disgusting, I finally had an answer for the teenage version of myself that loved food, that shoveled it down without waiting for a taste.
"It really is easy to forget."
And so I had, had forgotten to eat. Had forgotten to drink. Until the sleep came crashing back into me, and the food I was forcing down ran right through me. My body rejected it despite my mind saying that if I went on any longer, I might make whatever damage I was incurring worse.
"God. I think I've ruined myself."
Truer words couldn't have been spoken. Tiredness seeped into me, and I plucked up whatever sounded like it wasn't going to make me gag - literally everything - and begrudgingly forced it down. The taste hit, and I don't know why, but I was almost trying to choke back the substance from coming back up.
More. "Oh, God."
And I choked down more, forcing more substance down into my throat. And the small little beady eyes staring up at me started to catch on that I had something, and they reached for it. No. Not this time.
"Sorry, this one is for mommy."
For once, I didn't give up whatever I had to them, to their cries, and the one who screamed for everything she couldn't receive. I choked down that piece and the idea that I shouldn't binge stuff came to mind.
A thought for a later date.
I told myself that, in emergency, that excess of one thing wasn't the priority. I needed to catch up on food, on water, and everything I had deprived myself of for some weird reason to make sure I was keeping my health up. Creeping thoughts edged my mind, wondering if this is why we might age horribly, why we might struggle with our health. Keeping track of so many living things, keeping track of one's self, it was a task that took more hours in the day and I was being sorely reminded of it.
Reminded of what could happen if I wasn't careful. My health was already steps from being back in the gutter. But things needed to be done. My frustration wasn't going to come undone by watching my needs and desires stay unmet. No, it was going to come in one crashing burst after another as I tirelessly pushed myself to down myself for the next few days. Rinse and repeat.
"Rinse and fucking repeat. Get your shit together."
And I talk to myself like I talk out loud, like I walk through a crowd. Real, honest, and skeptical of the world passing me by.
If heaven so above me asks me to do my due diligence, hell below me will cast me a place for failing to meet those expectations. And I'd die, toiling it, only to recast myself in that seat far below, toiling again and again in my frustration to portion myself, my time, and everything around me until the memory of my childhood hit. When I was seven, and some thought bleached itself over my mind like a permanent stain. "You can only handle one person at a time." And that limiter resonated so hard with me in that moment of brevity, I hardly realized how much it would eat its way into everything else around me in my older age.
"When am I going to get my shit together?"
Three Weak, Five Fold
I remember spiraling,
my vision dizzying from pushing myself hard.
Was this sick?
Am I sick?
Salt stung, like sulfur shoved up the nose.
Rub it out, eyes peeled back wide like I'm looking for an anchor.
I must have spun around the room.
My legs feeling like they looked.
Crooked and bent?
Or was that the world?
Bending and twisting as the blood exited my body like it was trying to say I made more than I should.
"I don't think it's supposed to exit there."
But the doctor isn't inclined to agree with me that something is happening to me.
"You should be okay."
I think he said.
“You should be okay.”
I think she said.
Dammit, they all sound the same.
Frustration mounting, I laugh, some sort of dark humor bubbling up as I try to choke back whatever bile comes to mind.
Or throat. Everything is nauseating. Food, my thoughts...
Fucking cynics. I'd snort that to myself, telling the clerk comically that the blood is coming out. And there's no cuts or wounds to show for it, but it's there and I'm walking.
Fuck if I know how.
And I'd pass out in the lobby, waiting because I 'wasn't an emergency'
Who knew that this was what it felt like to put my life in the medical grade glove.
The blue hands of someone's nine to five, or more aptly put someone's six to fourteen.
And their God toy of choice was a pill.
Something they'd shut me up with.
Some sort of anti-bacterial.
Something to turn my stomach into one of those porcelain thrones.
If only my gut wasn't porous and unhoned.
I don't think those pills are turning me around.
Fuck, this agony.
This is agony.
He's showing me no results,
but he's licking his dry and cracking lips, looking at me from an angle like I'm some weird specimen that's here for a new drug fix.
I swear, I'm not an addict. I just don't want to feel like I'm dying.
And yet, the way he stares at me comes in and out like reality is nothing but a fuzzy dream.
A dream that I might wake up from, or not.
But there's nothing left for me to believe after twice, thrice, and fourth on the way. I think I might scream, but then they're peeling me up from the porch like some shitty kid's sticker stuck to a desk.
And I can't keep control, I can't drive anymore.
And I'm sure my pulse is somewhere erratically above me.
Dangling as much as the IV bag I've been forced to catheter.
God, let the pain take me away.
Let it take me away, like it robs me of my words.
Of my ability to believe I'm a walking, talking human and turn me into some pain-afflicted thing. Just give me a break.
Drugged up again. And I'm riding out into the trees, watching the dark spin around me.
I'm sure she's in the front seat, wondering what the hell they did to me. What the hell I'm saying, but the strong arms of the man who loves me is more than enough to drag me up from the gutter. To jostle some sense into this blackened mind.
To shove off the waft of whatever drug I've become.
God, they're trying to kill me. Trying to kill me to join the rest so I can be another bill, something profitable. It's all the same.
If it weren't for the man who saw my tired eyes, hanging on for life that next afternoon. I don't know if I'd be here. I don't think I'd be alive.
Heart on Fire
Her eyes are watching me,
All around me.
If I take a breath,
I know she's counting on me to exhale it.
That I'm the only living, breathing being here.
The only one who's real, and she's the one playing them all.
Puppeteering the strings.
All the strings that make them all dance and sing.
This town isn't made of people.
It's made of things.
If I take the time to think,
how lonely her little place is.
I wonder if the accident was the last time I stepped foot into my reality,
before I entered hers. And the world's breath died on my ears.
God, if only my soul could be saved from the scream of it calling me back to enter it's arms, but she took it all away.
She took me away.
She's got me wondering.
Wondering if I ought to run.
If only her words didn't give me the sort of mental release.
The things that were all the things I needed for someone else to be.
Am I trapped? Or hesitating to leave.
Her claws are sinking deep,
her words are working up out of my throat until my voice isn't my own.
If this is love, is it supposed to consume me?
I don't know, but she's my Winona.
And I'll be damned if she casts me out after all the things we've done.
We've said.
She is the monster that takes the form of everyone, filling my head with lies.
Deceit.
But that face she dons, so cute and round.
Bright gray-green eyes, tiny lips pursed from a restrained smile.
I don't want to let go.
I know she could let me go at any time.
And I'd be broken, like the rest.
Another face to the collection of strings,
lining the wall of the town of make believe.
The Pot III
Slipping down off the wall, I slowly walked up to the sliding glass door. My clawed hand slipped under the thick lining of fur at my chest and finally up to my cheek as I pinched one eye shut. "What?"
The night air felt like it was twisting, or maybe it was the mental check I was finally having that made everything look like it was going sideways as my maw opened and I gaped at myself. "What?" Disbelief flooded through me as tears welled up in my eyes and my nose started to hurt from the stuffed inhales I kept making that made the air whistle. "No! No. No. No. No!"
Dropping to my knees, I sank into the wet grass as I started to sob hysterically. I couldn't hear anything around me, but I could see the lights from the adjoining yards flick on. Lights from the house in front of me flicked on, though by the time that door slid open, I was already out of the yard and shakily running back the way I had come. I tripped while trying to clamor over the branches and onto the forest floor, stumbling and bumping awkwardly into trees and pinching my foot in between unseen roots as I tried to wriggle free of the forest that was trying to enact its vengeance for my earlier rampage.
I finally saw the red and white on the floor as I picked up the nearly torn shoe to stare at how tiny it was. My shoe! The ones I was wearing earlier. Finally, I dropped back to my knees, sobbing hotly into the night. I was a complete monster!
-
There was a sharp rustle of branches behind me and I jerked upright, turning to snarl instinctively at what was to come, only to see a familiar face.
"Denise, breathe! Breathe!" Alex's hands were wrapping around my wrist before I could yank back. I tried to shy away from him, but when I felt his hand catch my warm skin, I turned my head back in surprise to see a very much human arm.
"Breathe." Alex told me again.
And I took in a shuddered breath, nodding tightly to him. "W-What happened?"
"I don't know. We were talking and then you slipped off into the dark after you went to get a drink of water. I thought someone took off with you." I could see the worry in his eyes, and despite how much I adored those green eyes of his, I couldn't bring myself to look at them much longer. "Hey," he breathed.
I jerked my head away from him, not letting his face dip into my view as I pinched my eyes shut. My mouth tightened into a thin, sharp line. "No."
"No?"
"No." I breathed.
"I don't get it," Alex finally said. "You know, we were all just laughing a few days ago... Relaxed, like we didn't have a care in the world and then Conner went missing-"
"Don't." I told him.
"But he did. And you've been acting strange since."
Conner was the closest thing I had to a brother since my attachment with my sister had felt strangely... severed, and oddly restricted. He had been my reason, Alex had been my rock while Rachael had been my humor. Richard was another story, but the group was oddly the comfort I had needed in the absence of my family, especially since my aunt was so busy as of late. "I can't calm down," I told him finally, sucking in a sharp breath.
"Why?"
"Fucking Jacob is a piece of shit!" I screamed hotly into the air. "He keeps toying with me. My feelings and then he just... He runs away like a coward when he gets me riled up."
Alex stopped talking. Or at least, he didn't respond immediately, but I was too busy wiping my tears from my eyes to see why. I could only assume he didn't know what to say, but the frustrated sigh caught my attention and brought me to try to steal a look at him to see what face he was making.
"I fucking can't stand him. Honestly." Alex pushed his hand through his brown hair. "He fucking pisses me off so much, Denise. You have no idea. I don't know why you're even talking to him."
"Because he made me feel..." I hated the words that came to mind. Loved... Touched. Warm. God, all of it felt so fucking foul. I couldn't believe I even romantically had any interest in him at all. "Fuck him." I breathed hotly. "He can kick rocks for all I care anymore!"
The Pot II
Claws raked through the air, leaving a trail of heat behind them. And I could hear his breathing restrict as he tried to dance away from me. The bastard was flighty, but I was quick. And my second attempt to snatch at him left me empty-handed while my other hand swung. My fist hit the ground, splitting and I felt my knuckles ache painfully.
"Denise, relax," Jacob tried to tell me. I could hear the seriousness in it, but the dim amused lilt hadn't left and I screamed again. I heard something break under my next punch as I slammed my fist into the nearby light pole and he darted around the fucking thing as I followed his steps in the dimly lit parking lot.
"Fuck you!"
"I see I struck a nerve," he sighed heavily, shaking his head before I caught the end of his hood finally, tearing it from his very body as my lengthened claws ripped the fabric to ribbons. I was breathing hot plumes into the air, and he looked smaller with each passing moment oddly enough. Strangely enough, with the passing seconds as I tried to grapple for him, heat wafted off my breath and rumbled deep from my chest. My body shuddered off the waves of icy Washington cold, somehow leaving me feeling more pissed than calm. "Come here!" I snarled, gnashing my canines at him.
Jacob's eyes were on me, brows rose, looking literally up towards me instead of slightly angled down as usual, like he was staring up a tower. I could see his hands lift in almost a plea as if begging me to calm down and a hot, unearthly roar left my chest that made him shrink back.
I think I heard him cuss, because in the next few moments, I was vaulting over the parking lot fence after him as I chased him deep into the woods. Branches and twigs snapped under my lifted arm and I swung at them like they were mere kindling, but I knew they were much bigger because the trees seemed to groan heavily as I pushed between them.
My hand struck out for his hood again as he vaulted between two closely nestled trees and my hand struck out when I realized I didn't fit through the narrow opening. I stared at him, watching him shrink back as he laughed nervously then turned to dart further between a brick wall just a little beyond the two trees I was stuck between and I screamed after him. I don't even think I was shouting his name, but merely yelling hotly into the air. I could hear the forest shudder and shake at my voice, and I was certain there was nothing I could do to get after him before I turned my gaze up, and started climbing.
The sheer ease of my weight seemed lifted as I vaulted myself up the trunk with ease. I don't remember my body being so light. Limber? Yes, but nothing like this. When I finally stopped scaling the tree, I stood at the top of a large branch that nearly broke under my weight only to vault myself onto the top of the brick wall. I felt my feet dig into the brick, my nails scratching unnervingly against it and possibly chipping off chunks of the material instead of my nails. I don't remember losing my shoes, but the thought finally occurred to me as I worked my way down the edge of the alley.
It was only when the flood light of someone's backyard porch light flicked on that I saw my reflection finally in the darkened sliding glass door. I nearly didn't recognize myself, if it weren't for my lifted hand. I was... Barely myself. I mean, not myself at all. I didn't look human. Fuck! I wouldn't even say I was ever human by the looks of it. I was a big, black burly thing of midnight fur and yellow eyes! Like some sort of haired beast with a dog's head mounted between my shoulders.
The Pot
Blood boiled over, and I could taste the coppery red in my mouth, between my pressed lips and sharp fangs as I stared him down. Something about the way he spoke to me, the arrogant demeanor and change in his confidence shook my own. I was certain something in my mind must've flipped, a switch of some sorts, and I was clenching my fists hard. A few mental images flickered to mind of my hands on his throat, nails digging in and I could almost salivate over the prospect of snapping that thick fucking neck on his twig of a body.
"Jacob," I snarled hotly under my breath.
"So sour," he replied with that lax arrogant tone of his, the one that sent spurts of fire through my body, that made it feel like fire was raining down over my skin in hot sputters as the hair arched on the back of my neck. "You're getting so worked up-"
"Don't." I interrupted him, the rage settling hotly in my blood as I tried to simmer it, to turn the heat down, but my eyes went to his pocket, watching the ring dance between his fingers like a toy. The black one that made my heart go cold, and the bird sing so loud in my heart that I almost felt like I was going to break down in tears. I was certain he saw that change in me, he had to have, because his expression shifted and everything took a turn for the worst.
"I know you loved your brother," Jacob mentioned coolly, pausing the ring between his forefinger and middle to look down at it. "And he meant the world to you. I just wanted to give you a memento back. Something small, since I mean... The rest of him is in pieces."
And I snapped. I don't know what occurred first, the guttural scream or my body flinging forward at him. I remember him dodging out of my newly occupied space as my claws raked down the brick wall. I didn't look to see the tear I'd managed to cut through it, like I was raking my hands through polyester fabric with jagged nails. But I do know that the surprise in his eyes at my speed was caught in those marbled blue eyes, the blue eyes I hated so much.