Wrenched

 

“It’s too late to correct it,” said the Red Queen: “when you’ve once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences.”

~ Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

 

 

The heart is wrenched with fingers of ache that wrap

slowly around the chest and grip it tight.

The day wavers with heat that calls sweetly to the mind

trapped within the body tied to night.

The wind blows softly and slips across the face like a kiss

pulling tears from deep to blur the sight.

The wall is hard against the back and pulls on cloth and skin

as knees buckle and the body starts to slide.

The cement here is chilled as it presses hard against the cheek

while soaking up the endless sighs.

The tears of longing fade away and dry to lines of salt

as crystal rivers without delight.

The body curls and shivers to mask the throbbing wrench of hurt

reminding of the hours until light.

The wake of fear is widened while this terrible feeling lasts

if only for this one more night.

The Cat … A Horror Story

“The icy breath of who I am paints the landscape of myself finding strength against the dam formed of Rain on a fractal shelf”

He’s not quite what I ever expected.

He’s not, at all, the grinning pink and purple thing that Disney would have us believe.  Neither is he the starved and mangy creature which inhabits the world of McGee.  Then again, maybe he is all of these things and more … or less. 

 

I find him to be rather tall and powerfully muscled, with fur as sleek as pressed silk.  He has a smile filled with razorblades.  He breaths deep and hard, in and out with the cold air of the grave and presses his forehead close to mine.  He speaks in whispers of living death, empty worlds between the stars and the ghosts of faded memory.  He caresses my arm with his dark and glistening claws that trace thin welts of pain and make my heart skip.  He—

 

Oh, but I do feel the need to interject a thought or two.  You see, I feel as if I am being slightly maligned.  I can not speak to the description of my being, as I take the appearance most approximate to the nature of those to whom I appear.  I rather resent the less than subtle inference that I am something demonic.  Quite the contrary, I am just a Cat.

 

The Cat scares me.

I find myself unable to keep my eyes from him even as I shiver in his presence.  I tell myself that it’s the pills.  I’ve finally slipped a mental gear and this thing can not be sitting beside me with a flicking tail and humming an off-key Evanescence tune.  How else could such a being have climbed the walls of sanity?

 

            How, indeed?

If I am unreal, and let us suppose for the moment that such is the case, then how could I grant insight in to matters unknown to this girl?  Hmmmm?  How could I provide her with glimpses of realities that she has never dreamt of and give her access to worlds beyond her limited and pathetic comprehension?  You tell me and then we both will know.

 

The Cat stands and stretches, the soft sound of popping tendons passes through the air.  There is a sense of menace to every movement as he turns his silver, jagged smile upon me and extends his arm.  I can see the way his claws are fused to the bones of his slender fingers when I press my hand in to his and my blood seems to thicken in my veins as his grip slowly tightens.  It’s an odd sensation, holding hands with a monster.

 

            Here, again, I am slandered.

Was I the “monster” this poor girl makes me out to be, would I not have simply slain her as soon as look at her?  Would I not, at this very moment, be chewing her bones and bathing in the liquid of her heart?  Would I bother with the pleasantries of sitting with her, as does a proper guest?

 

I feel my breath catch in my chest as the Cat drapes his arm around me.  There is a draft of cold, damp air which seems to swirl around us and I feel the sense of motion even though we have taken not a single step.  I close my eyes and feel my legs begin to give and his arm moves to wrap around my waist.  There is the faint rustle of fabric as a soft but heavy cloth slides across my shoulders.  His partial embrace tightens and I can, at last, open my eyes as he fastens the cloak with a tarnished silver broach.

 

A path seems to rise up before us, twisting in to view from some unseen whirl of flickering candles.  Small pools of dancing yellow light mark our way and I feel a sturdy pressure at my waist directing me forward.  The pace is languid and I become aware of the awful silence between my own ragged breaths and his, which are still deep and heavy.  There is not even the sound of our footsteps and I have the wild sensation of crossing through a perfect void on a bridge suspended by broken flame. 

 

Now, I am a Cat who can give a slice of credit when credit is due.  The girl is resilient, I must admit.  Many a Traveler has come apart while moving through the Gate.  Oh, not literally come apart … well, rarely, in any case … but I have been witness to quite a number of mental breakdowns.  A mild faint is nothing of which to be ashamed.  I do wonder if she suspects, however, the nature of our travel.  It might be enough to break a Cat’s heart, if I had one.

 

Time seems to have completely unwound.  I feel as if we’ve been walking for eternity and yet hardly taken a few steps, when the candles take the pattern of spiral steps which seem to flow upward.  His arm slips from around my waist and I can’t suppress a shudder as his claw traces along my spine.  He stands there, a cruel smile fashioned of simmering malice upon his face.  His ears, long and straight, angle slightly toward me as if he expects me to say something and I feel my throat tighten.  His whiskers quiver with unheard laughter and I turn away from him to consider the floating staircase.

 

I admit that I simply could not resist the temptation to caress the girl’s deliciously straight and rigid spine.  Such misplaced pride and horror.  Ah, such a buried taste for the macabre and ghastly … felt and expressed, yet denied and refused.  She is a study in conflicting desire, this girl.  See how she so desperately wants to climb the stairs?  She burns with a violent need to know and be aware even while she claims the role of a victim and paints me, a simple Cat, in the cast of a villain.  It is really quite amazing, this girl’s ability to manipulate her own mind.  Deliciously amazing.

 

I can feel him close as we move up the twisting stairs.  His presence is as powerful as the silence around us and just as disturbing.  The sensation of dread passes over me, very much as if I were watching a small child drift mindlessly in to heavy traffic.  It is a terrible helplessness and I grips my heart turns it to a sledgehammer in my chest.  I cling to sanity in threadbare shreds and grow dizzy.  It is another eternity before the candles level out and I find myself stepping on to a small glass platform.

 

He slips his arm once more around my waist and I can feel his long, muscled tail wrap gently around my legs.  The view before me wrenches the breath from me.  A dim, misty glow has risen from somewhere around us and I can clearly see the valley below.  Even in the half-light, the crystalline shapes of ice and snow that sparkle like a thousand blue-white gems.  The beauty of the scene breaks my heart and a quiet sob seems to smother me.  Trees, locked in frozen embrace, shimmer against the jagged backdrop of clearest ice.  Mountains of crystal seem to flow out forever and touch the edge of the nowhere.

 

She suspects.  I can see it her eyes as they drink in the scene before her.  Even if her conscious mind can not yet grasp the slippery edges of reality, such as it is, some part of her has become aware of the truth.  I do not mind telling you that this can go only one of two ways and neither is particularly pleasant.  I have walked with Travelers in untold numbers and I can see the struggle to come.  Brief as it will be.

 

I feel him shift, so very gently, to stand behind me and his tail slides up to replace his arm around my waist.  As he slides his long fingers along my arms, those wicked nails leave long pink strands in their wake.  His fingers entwine with mine and I close my eyes as the tears begin to run in hot trickles down my cheeks.  The pain is sharp and he pulls me tight against him as the razor sharp claws of this thumbs slice in to my wrists.  My eyes fly open and panic invades every fiber of my being as I can not help but struggle.  Great rivers of crimson jet in glistening arcs, spreading out for form a dark mist.  I begin to drowse and he pulls me tighter still, holding my arms out and pulling his thumbs back to slice deeper in to my flesh.  My eyelids feel heavy as I begin to drift in Time and I close them to a final sight of cherry rain.

 

Now, I can tell you what you are thinking: the girl was right and she should never have trusted a monster.  I am quite offended by that, actually.  Was it I who chose this form?  Was I the one who kept lingering against the voices of doctors and family to just let go?  I was not.  I have many a name and many faces across many a world.  To some, I am Light; to others I am Darkness.  To this poor girl, I was simply The Cat.

uNdOnE

There are cries among the lost …
Tears among the wicked …
And still, the Corridors of Forever take heed …
Of the dark Souls bound and twisted on the Earth.

 

 Reality came back … like a dream or, more like a terrible nightmare. My vision cleared, after a fashion, and the pounding of my heart was like a wild hammer … the force pushing against the inside of my skull.

It was a fascinating sight … that room. All things aside, the thunder of that headache aside, what came to my awareness was both starkly horrific and blindingly amazing, as if there was some kind of difference.

Feeling came back to me then, as I looked around at the glistening rivers of red that clung to the stupidly off white walls. I looked down … astonished at the crimson gloves that tightened over my hands.

The blade, I noticed, was very long. The film of death still clung to the once shiny surface and the handle was sticky in my palm.

“Do you see this thing that you have done?” the voice is close and almost musical. The soft thread of sadness is woven in to the simple words. I am struck by all blood as it darkens in streaks and pools. Everywhere.

“What?  This?  I have done?” my own voice is tired and stupid. The sound of broken laughter fills my mind and I can hear the slow breathing of a monster; it is a ragged and rough sound that makes my skin crawl like sandpaper over sunburned skin.

I turn and he is there, this boy who speaks to me with a voice so sad it shatters my heart. His eyes, as green as the deepest forest and filled with salty tears that fall away to splash silently in the sticky red which drenches the floor.

“Don’t you know me?” the sorrow is like gentle waves of warm water washing over me, as endless as the ocean. His hair, the colour of copper in sunlight, crosses over his eyes as he looks down and shakes his head.

“Don’t you see this thing?” his breath falls across my cheek as he embraces me and great wracking sobs rip loose from my chest. The cold wind of memory floods my soul and the blade slips away from my tired hand.

“What have I done?”  We whisper together.  A faint throbbing fills my ears.  It is soft, now, but I know that it has always been there … fading slowly to wind down like a broken clock.  

“You have undone me,” his final sigh passes through my lips, “You have undone yourself.”

Third

What price is paid among the Fallen?
Broken wings and shattered dreams
and empty frozen Souls.

Who hears the cries of Voices calling?
Bleeding throats and dying hopes
and nowhere left to go.

 

“Of such terrible beings, there can not conceivably be a survival.”

This phrase has been running though my mind, over and over, for the last few days and it has begun to wear on my last few nerves.  It’s a funny thing to have such neurotic fixations and be so highly aware of them.  I have begun to wonder if the Universe hasn’t suffered a hiccup somewhere in the cogs of the Cosmic Machine.

 

=/

 

There comes a point where the human machine, the combination of mind, body and soul that comprises the totality of mortal essence, must naturally run out of steam and begin to falter.  Each of the components attempts to shift focus to another: soul to mind, body to soul, that sort of thing.  This creates a sort of feedback loop in the human condition that, on the outside, most probably presents as some sort of psychosis or deep neurosis.  When the human can find no true rest, madness preys on the edges of subjective reality and begins to affect a sort of dulling of the awareness of self.

 

Strange things can happen when a fascination sparks with the observation of one’s own human condition.  What some may call “introspection” others might call “self absorption” or possibly something worse.  The focus on subjective perspective breeds a degree of circular logic after a while, with less and less of the outer world making much sense or even much of a difference.  The tendency to crawl into bed and sleep becomes second nature.

 

The difficulty is finding a set of air-breaks to slow the inward spin.

 

 

 

 

Second

tempered, tempered like glass in the fires,
shaped and crafted and breathed on,
’till cool and clear, and ready for some display,
but cracks and flaws are hidden wires,
that show so clearly in the burning dawn.

 

 

“What goes around, comes around.”

            So many people can speak those words in and not comprehend the nature of what they mean.  Karma is not a word or a ‘random force’ or some kind of dark hearted cleaver that slices the Soul apart.  There is no such thing as ‘bad’ Karma or ‘good’ Karma.  It just IS.

 

            Karma is the central spoke on which the Wheel of Life turns.  This true force is a Universal Law that exists beyond belief and beyond any human attempt at explanation. 

 

            Karma is the covenant that we, these Souls who we truly are, make between ourselves and the Divine in a way that can only be expressed as a Universal Constant.  It is a type of check and balance system that exists outside the confines of faith or belief.  To quote a popular film, “It’s all very personal.”

 

            When the Wheels of Karma turn, for better or worse, we have only ourselves to blame.  While other players are often involved, through our own interaction with them, the choices we make and the outcome that follows has nothing to do with any other Souls but our own. 

 

            No matter the faith or the belief system, Karma exists within the framework of every single Soul’s existence.  It is the unspoken law of self justice and one of the most basic principles of the workings of the Great Universal Machine.

 

            Every decision made must be embraced.  No matter the consequence or reward.  So long as we face our actions and confront the result, Karma is naturally balanced.  This can very often be rough.  At times, it can hurt and twist the Soul.  At times, it can sooth and uplift the Soul.  As incredible as it may sound, Karma is totally and fully up to each and every individual Soul that moves through this Universe.  This Force is linked directly to what Christians call ‘free will’.  Since most Pagans consider the Soul to be free by Divine order, then all things draw to a single point.  Indeed, Karma is that point and the axis of the Great Wheel.

 

            What goes around, comes around.

 

 

 

 

     

First

it’s nothing, that blade that falls
ripps and cuts and shiny glints of rapid silver
they talk and sing, those ripps and cuts
sing of misery unfulfilled

 

I grew up with an inner world of blood and ice, balanced by an outer world of sand and heat.  I was forced, at a very early age, to see the masks that people place on the Universe … the “gods” and “goddesses” that so many want, or need, to feel are in control of things.  I’ve learned … in truth, I’ve always known … that the Universe is a massive series of interlocking forces which drive ALL things.  We live in a gigantic Cosmic machine that is both alive and unalive.  The Universe has no mercy, no compassion, no hatred, no nothing.  The “gods/goddesses” … as powerful and omniscient as they seem to us … are simply powerful beings locked within the same cold framework of Universal motion as are we.

 

It is so amazing that sometimes I think that I am going mad.

I was isolated from the “Divine” for so long … and now that I have refashioned that link, I see only the face of the Dark Mother against the backdrop of the Great Universal Machine.