Other

Sometimes my succubus sits uncomfortably close to the surface, blood hunger, claws, and pointed teeth. I want to purr and lick a lover's blood off my fingertips, kiss their lips and turn their chin red with their own essence. It's a slow and sensual violence, gasps of pleasure indistinguishable from moans of pain. My fangs are sharp and my sex is wet, and I could take you, hurt you, make you breathlessly beg me for every minuscule bit more. I may seem sweet, even laughably harmless, but you would be foolish to forget that my human skin conceals a predator who revels in leisurely taking lovers apart.

A Hard Conversation, draft two

"Is it really so bad that you need to do this?" Kayla's fingers dug into my arm. "Do you really feel so terrible?"

I didn't jerk away, but I found it a bit difficult to maintain eye contact. Her brown eyes shone with liquid, and her lips parted, corners down-turned.

"Yes," I said. If my voice broke, I didn't acknowledge it. "This is not what I want for myself. But -"

Kayla swallowed hard. I took a steadying breath.

"But this is a good offer," I continued. "You know what it's like to live every day of your life without pain, or even fatigue, regardless of which realm you're in. I only get that sort of freedom when I travel."

A tear escaped the bounds of her lashes and trickled down her cheek.

"They're offering me a chance to stay, Kayla. They're offering me so much freedom."

Her nails caught at my skin as she pulled away, crossing her arms over her chest. I knew better than to reach for her, even as my throat closed up and my stomach dropped.

"All you have to do is stay there forever," she finished for me. "All you have to do is leave everyone else in your life behind."

I closed my eyes as I felt my own tears break from my control. My voice came out in a strained whisper.

"That's the gist, yeah."

I Know, Draft Three

"I know."

I didn't look up from the program I had open in Netbeans, continuing to set up the various objects I needed to create a useful calendar for Dr. Nexus's extra credit assignment.

"Good for you," I drawled. "Give yourself a cookie."

"No. I mean, I know why you're always sick."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a long moment, before slowly turning my head, one eyebrow raised sharply, to look at the cretin who dared to address me.

Derek Delphi, the mouth-breathing no-lube jack-off cretin in question, apparently took that as an invitation.

He swung out the chair at the spot next to me, flopping back into it and lacing his fingers behind his head.

"Yup," he repeated. "I know why you're sick."

"Oh?" My voice was dry and flat to contrast his self-satisfied sing-song. "Do share what has taken a platoon of medical specialists more than twenty-one years to fail to discover. And then share your methodology, because I'm sure there's a Nobel prize in your future."

Derek smirked and took in a deep breath that puffed out his chest. I'm sure he heard a drum roll in his head.

I stared at him balefully.

"You're... not human," he declared.

I felt the wings on my back - the ones that weren't really there and that no one could see - twitch, but I managed to control my expression.

Not so much the exasperated sigh.

"An interesting if irrelevant conclusion, Dick."

He dropped his hands and sat up, the back of the chair springing upright with a thump.

"It's Derek."

I turned back to my schoolwork.

"You sure?" I asked lightly. "I thought you knew."

I kept my eyes on my code as Derek huffed, stood up, and hovered over me, casting a shadow on my laptop screen. As far as I was concerned, this interaction was over.

"Snake," he spat.

I continued typing out objects in Java.

It was another few seconds before his shadow left my screen as he stalked out of the lab.

Faces, Draft Two

"Strip that face off," she commanded.

"Are you sure this is the right time?" I asked. My eyes darted, taking in the dark recesses of the concrete nook, the fluorescent light sharply intruding from down the hallway, the slash of my colleague's mouth. We were alone, but my heart continued to race. "I think they might notice if these two disappeared."

She hissed, a low, harsh sound, air against fangs.

"We have bungled this mission. These faces are compromised. We must abandon this strategy and utilize another tactic." Her tongue clicked angrily, three times in quick succession. "You are silly, Salah. It is foolish to become emotionally invested in a face."

I rolled my spine, extending the sharp bones that this face did not wear in embarrassed threat.

"We can still utilize these faces, Grear," I insisted. "Their leader cares for this specimen - " I tapped a claw against my cheek "- and will forgive our transgressions against their laws if I continue to wear the likeness of her mate. We can make this work."

Grear narrowed her eyes in the human expression of anger.

"No. There is too much risk in relying on human affections. I am invoking the Statute of Hierarchy. Strip off that face. Our resources are better expended in a new plan."

My muscles locked, but to dispute the Statute would be to turn traitor. I reached toward my jaw and drew a long, sharp claw down from my ear to my chin, skin separating smoothly from the hard protrusions of my exoskeleton.

Across from me, I watched my ranking officer do the same, the pale skin of the face she had stolen sliding free to reveal the silky green-black curves of her natural form, reshaped to mimic Homo sapiens skeletal system. She tugged as she began to peel the flesh away from her neck, pulling it free of the jagged spurs that had been holding it against her, until it puddled on the concrete at her feet. With a roll of her head and a satisfied chirp, she stepped free.

"Are you done?" she clicked.

I visualized the human leader's features, the shine of light on her too-soft cheeks and the sensation of vulnerably blunt fingertips running down this form's smooth back.

"You are the most beautiful woman in the world," she had breathed in my ear, her too-dull-to-damage teeth grazing my jaw. "You will save us all, Lily."

With a long, human exhalation, I pushed the face of her late lover free from the last spur on my toe.

"Yes, Grear," I clicked back. "I am done."

I tried not to look back as we slipped out of the concrete alcove and crept furtively through the fluorescents toward the exit.

The Weight of Silence

Sometimes, it is far too easy to fill your mouth with silence, to weigh down your tongue with all the words and emotions you tell yourself are better left unsaid. If you're not careful, you start to choke on the backup, gag on your secrets. No amount of dry heaving will stop you from asphyxiating. The only way to save yourself is to speak.

Such a shame that silence is a habit.

The Innocence of Monsters

When I was younger, I didn't know any better than to be exactly who I was, and it confused me when this course of action rarely worked out in my favor. Why should I pretend to be something I was not?

I was very self-possessed, and extremely self-aware - I had confidence to burn. What I lacked was guile, and an understanding that others would happily build my pyre from the kindling I provided. I was a monster who hadn't yet figured out that she was to be feared.

My ignorance made me vulnerable.

I won't say I was cast out of Eden - I never lived in such a place. But, for a time, I was innocent enough to believe that I had a place there.

Worship

My claws are terrible and sharp,
Glinting gold in candlelight,
Darkened blood shimmering with slick, sick
       Promises.

Your lips part,
Gaze swimming upwards toward my eyes.
My fangs bared cruel white -
       Yes, prostrate yourself before me,
       Worship my gilded curves,
       Pray to that which disregards you -
I straddle your lap,
And look right through you.

I will dig my claws into your chest,
Hear your sharp intake of breath before you scream,
Take your vocal cords between my teeth,
Bite off your sounds before they echo,
Admire the harmonies of your gurgles
As liquid heat splatters my chest.

I will eat your heart someday.

You
       will love it.

Serpent and Child

I have been small -
miniscule -
staring down a serpent roughly seven times my size,
discussing with her
the nature of lies.

"Tell me a story,"
says she in my mind.
"Tell me a story
of futures and timelines."

"Truth is construction,
and your wings don't give flight.
You've been larger before,
smaller inside.
Don't tell me you've never thought you could fly -"
This serpent is honest as she spins her lies.

I've tasted colors,
pole danced for pixies,
slept with incubi -
"Don't tell me you've never thought you could fly."

I stare myself down,
Wonder why I'm roughly seven times my size.
I gaze up with trust and wide child's eyes -
"Please tell me you'll be my guide."

Bad Dreams

I hate being alone. I remember a time when that was my biggest fear, when I had nightmares about standing in a concrete courtyard watching a crumpled napkin toss end over end, an urban tumbleweed. I wouldn't even scream, because I knew, with all the logic of dreaming, there was no one around to hear me, not even if I screamed with all the volume of dragon lungs.

I would wake to the stumbling panic of my pulse.

I don't fear being alone so much now - at least, not in the same way. I lay awake in my bed feeling the crack and pull of my joints, the way a recently dislocated finger burns, and my shoulders ache ominously. It is a loud and dark way to be alone, aware of every way in which my body is falling apart. My body has become a courtyard, my pain a series of crumpled napkins.

I do not scream now, either. My pulse may stutter and stumble into the storm winds of eternity - I will not wake up from reality.

Burden of Proof

     Sometimes
I want to crawl out of my skin,
wrap myself around you,
purr into your ear -

It will be okay.

I can prove it to you
with the warm, wet embrace
of my conviction.

My tears are salt-lines on my face
because you are far away,
and there are little barbs
     hooking
me into my flesh.

I have only words to show you
how safe you should be.

That is something worth crying about.

Predator

I could eat you alive. My claws would drip burgundy as I dug into your stomach, and the salted copper of your blood would lash, heated, across my face.

I will lick it all up, tongue curling around my fangs for the last drops, before I am through.

If I cannot have the comforts of sex, I will have the gratifications of violence.

For now, I stretch, toes pointed, hips coiled with intent, purring between my sharpened teeth, kneading the bedspread with unsullied gilded talons.

Lessons in Pomegranate

"Eat this," she says.

I accept the fruit, the smooth red skin of it resting uneasily against my palm. I could drop it. I could walk away. I could forget.

"Don't be shy."

She hands me a knife with a wooden handle. The blade is too long, I think. The metal is not meant to be so dark. Is that blood crusted at the tip?

I stand, arms outstretched, a pomegranate in my left hand and a dagger in my right. My wings droop. My skin is pale in this dark place, an outlier.

Even the colors don't want me here.

She makes no further commands. She leans against a tree trunk, her arms crossed beneath her exposed breasts. She waits.

My physical eyes close. My third eye opens, tingling in the center of my forehead.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

I slice into the pomegranate, the skin resisting. But I force my two hands toward each other, and the fruit's membranes give way with a gush of red fluid that coats my palms and trickles down my arm.

I pause, horrified at the color staining my skin. Surely there's a way to avoid this mess?

Her laugh draws my gaze to her. She shakes her head, her long black hair brushing her shoulders with soft shushes.

"You are hungry. Why not eat?"

A trickle of juice drips from my elbow and spatters my upper thigh.

I look to her again.

Her eyes roll, impatient.

Slowly, fingers shaking, I bring the knife to my lips.

She arches a single manicured eyebrow.

I press my tongue to the cold metal. The juice is sweet, but it cannot cancel out the tang of iron. Surprisingly, the combination is perfectly pleasant.

I let my eyes drift shut as I draw my tongue up the blade, feeling the ridges of the dagger underneath my tongue. There is a flash of pain as I reach the tip, and copper mingles with juice and iron.

I lick my lips afterward, and swallow.

She's right - I am hungry. Not just hungry - starving.

I drop the knife, and it sheathes itself in the blood darkened soil.

I do not care - I don't need it.

With both hands, I bring the pomegranate to my face, digging it open with my nails, letting the juice run down my arms, splatter my legs, spray on my breasts. I expose the ruby-colored seeds, nestled in gristle. They feel like smooth pebbles on my lips. I lick, bite, nibble, suck, burying my cheeks in seeds and skin. the seeds taste sweet, yes, but I can't bring myself to savor the flavor. I spit out the white membranes as they get in my way, gulping down seeds with small crunches and large gusto.

She begins to speak as I eat, abandoning her post by the tree to circle me, running her claws lightly over my shoulders, purring in my ears.

"If you are hungry, you must eat. If you are curious, you must experience. If you wish to understand something, to consume it, sometimes you must destroy it."

She pauses and I use the broad of my tongue to push a seed loose.

"It's okay to be a monster."

I am not sure I agree, but I am hungry, so I eat.

"If you want something, take it. Make mistakes. Make enemies. Eat them too. Wear your teeth."

She moves back in front of me and smiles. Her teeth are pointed, blood-stained ivory glinting in the scarce moonlight that filters through the tree's canopy.

I run my tongue along my lips to capture some of the juice that's coating my chin. They catch on my own teeth with a long scrape of pain. I swallow the blood. Right -  I remember now.

My wings grow warm against my back, the flames brightening with my memories.

She nods in approval, reaching forward and swiping a clawed finger down my arm. She cleans off the juice with her tongue.

"Monsters are gorgeous creatures," she assures me. "We are wise because we have destroyed so much and cared so little for who would preserve it. Monsters break boxes, traditions, and hearts."

She moves in closer to me, close enough I can feel the heat radiating off her hips. She smiles at me. My lips, still coated with blood and juice, part. My breath grows shallow. She plucks one of the few remaining seeds from its nest and presses it between my sharp teeth. I am hungry, so I eat.

She smirks her approval as I swallow, wrapping my lips around her finger and sucking.

I am vaguely disappointed when she draws her hand away.

"You are covered in blood," she observes. "There will always be blood for you. Do not regret it - do not feel guilty. Monsters have their own beauty, and it is at its best in red."

I drop the mangled pomegranate skin when she backs away, letting it fall around the knife's hilt, dismembered and mauled in my frenzied quest to sate my hunger - an unavoidable casualty.

I am soaked in red. It stains my fingers, darker in the lines of my palms, outlining my silver moon and star ring. It is underneath my nails, gathered in the creases of my elbows. There are splatters on my breasts, dribbles on my navel. I stretch my wings, touching them together over my head and making sparks fly into the night sky to be swallowed by the tree's canopy.

My pale skin no longer looks out of place.

I have been here before I realize. The juice was not juice, then, but blood. The pomegranate was someone's heart. I tore their ribs apart, nestled my mouth into the cavity beneath their sternum and listened to them scream as I buried my teeth in their intestines and devoured them. I was alive with fire and dripping blood and I learned how sweet a lover's heart could be.

Now I lean and pluck the knife from the earth. The blade is the perfect length, and the hilt seems to mold to my hands. The weight of it feels like an extension of my self, finally back in place.

If she were more excitable, she would bounce up and down and clap her hands together in excitement. Instead, she stretches sinuously, her lips curved to the side.

"There you are," she purrs. "If you are hungry, you should eat."

Sick Person

I feel like all I can see when I look at myself now is a sick person. I can see the possibilities for what else I might be, for what else I am, but most of those are things that may be beyond my actual capabilities. When you get down to it, I am mangled.

I am a dancer who cannot dance, a writer who cannot hold a pencil, a student who cannot attend classes. I am an extrovert who cannot leave the house, and a reader who does not have the presence of mind to untangle a plot. I am damaged goods.

I am a burden on my family, the back hole in my parents' pockets. I am a bright spot of possibility and potential that society invested in only for my stock to crash. I am wasted.

 I tell myself that no good character is without a weakness, and that the only reason the world can survive my awesomeness is because I am handicapped in this way. What terrible things I would accomplish if I were healthy!

Everything I do is less already, because what more could it have been instead?

I am good with masks. I can play the part of the healthy person for hours at a time! 

It is a facade. It is a sand castle. 

The illusion dissipates. The walls crumble.

I make plans for the future that I cannot count on coming to pass.

Sometimes, I look in the mirror, and all I see is a sick person, staring back at me. Her eyes are shot through with blood, her cheeks are puffy, complexion dotted with thick, red, flaking skin, with bruises under her eyes like she got punched in the face. Her lips are chapped, the roots of her dyed hair are showing, and no one that young should have lines cut so deep in her face. No one so young should bear such obvious evidence of hardship.

Pain is a formidable sculptor.

I want more than anything to look at that sick person with a smile, but I say, "I hate you" several times a day. I thought I was talking to my body at first, but now I'm no longer sure.

How can I love that which is destroying me?

And that's what it feels like.

 IT FEELS LIKE I AM BEING DESTROYED.

It is not artful. It is not beautiful. It is not a romantic story, something for healthy people to read and coo over, sigh and interpret as me being "remade." It is not creation out of chaos, a phoenix rising from its own ashes, oceans receding to reveal land. No. I am not raw iron, and my illness is not a crucible. 

I am a star - a beautiful, young star with an atmosphere and a surface that might have supported life one day - being drawn into a black hole, painfully aware of the inevitability of being stripped down and consumed.

Now - tell me that I am being short-sighted. Tell me that I am being pessimistic. Tell me that I am a brilliant girl who can do anything she wants. Tell me that other people have it worse. Tell me that I should be grateful.

Tell me about this one person you heard about - same problem (ish) as me - who did such and such great thing in spite of their malady. Tell me about a future where they've figured out a cure. Tell me about how I've given up without a fight, and how darkness always comes before the dawn, and how I'm such a strong person, things will get better, you swear.

Tell me all the ways I'm wrong to feel and think that I am just a sick person.

You aren't telling me anything I haven't screamed at myself in the mirror.