I used to have a face. It was a marvelous face, one that knew the secrets to gathering attention. This didn’t stop the clawing and shrill rats from clawing it away from me, tearing my face off and leaving me with nothing but a clay mask, a symbol of my shame and loss.
My chest is tight. It contracts and folds upon itself dozens upon dozens of times, ribs cracking and flesh melding. I’m silent the entire time. Too nervous to speak. My body continues to implode until I finally am forced to breathe again. My body cracks and bends as it reverts.
My body creaks; my bones are the rusted remains of what I once was. Shining. Strong. Now I bleed a sickly brown, the color of rust-infected blood. Every motion I make is agonising for my oxygen-exposed bones and my porous skin. Yet, I have not stopped moving. I refuse.
I’m not real. I’m a myth created by the fearful to keep their children in line. My existence is predicated entirely on a belief that I’m real and that I’ll come for you during the night. I won’t, though. Because I’m not real. If I ever do become real? Be wary.
I reach out to my companion. I ask them to join me. They grab my hand. They scream as my skin begins to crawl over theirs. I open my mouth and radio static sounds. From the bushes, static resonates. Smaller versions of myself, squirrels, insects, even deer, step out, mouths wide.
I lie down and allow myself to be enveloped in the flesh. It takes me in, and makes me a part of it. I’m finally home. This is where I belong. My new job embraces me, screaming to leave while I can, begging me to not take this curse. I smile. Thank you for the warm welcome, kin.
You will never know the joy of living until you stand atop the icy precipice of Unknown. The rush of wind claws at your face, digging into your flesh. It screams at you that you’ll never be fine again. The wind hurts.
And yet you stare into the abyss. And you feel nothing.
Everyday I awaken, and I peel off my skin in order to feel my bones and their tender texture. It’s comforting, and a reminder that I’m alive and that I will continue to live. Feeling the pulse of life coursing through the strongest parts of this living corpse is wonderful, and practically a necessity before I close my fleshy hatch.
Yet I don’t feel alive. I do this twice, sometimes three times a day and I feel nothing. The bones still pulse, but the pulse only reminds me of what I once had and wish I could have again.
Perhaps it is time to find new bones.
I do intend on growing wings. They’ll be useless for flight, since i’ll only be repurposing my useless rib cage in order to create something beautiful. While I will fail to fly literally, I will fly metaphorically. I will be placed within your Television and Cellular Phone for safekeeping, an oddity among normities, and the world will rejoice once I teach them to create their own wings. We will be beautiful, and we will all be remembered for our featherless flights.
I dig my right hand’s fingers between my left hand’s middle and ring fingers, splitting my hand clean in half, branchinating my blood and bones in a fashion similar to a tree. I dig my broken and beaten toes into the dirt, splitting off into a cursed root system. I crave nutrients. It’s all that I want. Let my roots of bone and skin find them for me. Let my branches of blood and marrow reach for prey for me to take in one solitary bite. I am the apex being. I will never die.
I punch through my walls one by one, aided by my acidic tears that decorate my fists, and I don’t look back. I burn down the home I once lived in using my tears as fuel. I spit on the grave of the house that once was, and I never look back. My body will grant me power to live as I have never lived before.
This is my new vessel. My old one was driven into the dirt and ended with no fanfare. I was forgotten and languished in obscurity. Now I am alive again. I shall not fade away again. I cannot fade away again. I will not fade away again. Please don’t let me fade away again.
I can’t stay, no matter what you do to try and make me. The true name granted to me by my demon ancestors has no power over me anymore. Call me what you like, name me what you like, but I can’t ever return. Chain my spine to your outpost and I will break it. I’m sorry. I’m gone.
There is no true connection. All of our ties to each other are fake. The only way to truly be united with someone to merge forms. Allow your tissue to truly unite with someone else’s tissue. Pull them closer within yourself and feel them pull closer too. Become one. Be connected.
I’m dying. I’m falling apart at the seems and at this point I’d be lying to myself if I were to say that I I could just hold my rotting skin to my body and keep it there. You can only plug so many holes before there are too many. Then the ship sinks. As will I. Farewell.
My veins create music, a beautiful symphony worthy of even gods. Their sound is so beautiful that the United Nations deem me a worldwide gift that shan’t be harmed. No one dares. No matter how much I plead, for the sounds of my veins are haunting me. Tomorrow I will rip them out.
I was born with hetero-bone-ia. Similar to heterochromia, something of mine doesn’t match. I’m sure you can guess what that might be. My form is uneven and cursed, and doctors recommended ending me, as a mercy. They were mistaken as to who that mercy would have been for.
There is an undeniable truth within all of us. It’s one that we can’t escape, it radiates poison while we try to hide it. It decays us from the inside out, eating us up. Only by embracing this radiation and screaming it out can we truly be freed from our shackles and lies
My gender is a carefully selected collection of human hubris, placed neatly and gently upon shelves to be shown off and judged by any who may pass by. Decades of self loathing for public consumption. Then I tear it all down and scream at the passersby. Those who know will join me
If I could just consume more and more I would eventually end this hunger. I could just eat to my heart’s content until I inevitably escape the bonds of my fleshy form and become something beyond my inhuman form. I can’t stop eating. I won’t stop eating.
Let me lay in peace. I’ll lay quietly in this field of flowers and allow my body to be overtaken by the roots. They’ll grow through me. They’ll use my warm body as sustenance. I’ll cry tears of joy when I see them bloom. Please. Let me lay with them.
Reproving
I burn holes into things. I just sit and watch them for a while, and eventually it will have a hole. It’s typically better if I just keep my eyes closed, but that really isn’t a way to live. I never get too close to anyone because if I end up loving them I will very much destroy them. I have a couple broken televisions in my home. I create small hollows in my food.There are a few spots above my bed that have holes in them. My body is similarly riddled with pits, yet my mirror is pristine.
No Animals in the Jungle
Its body was covered in flower petals, almost like lizard scales. It was beautiful, with its mouth covered in blood and death in its eyes.
Your prophet tells you something dangerous is fast approaching. Your time is limited, and you only have-
You start awake. You were dreaming. You don’t remember about what. You check on the bucket collecting water from the leak in your roof. It’s pitch black and smells of ink.
You stand and watch the tide roll in. For hours you stand perfectly still. It feels like an eternity and a moment all at the same time. When the tide retreats back, you see your own naked corpse on the shore. The rain pours down on you. Your body twitches.
You are the pinnacle of peace. You step into the streets and cause cars to swerve to avoid you, but never raise a finger against them. You rise inches above the ground and your flesh ripples as you do. People climb out of their cars to watch you. The day has come; you are peace
The pitter patter of tiny teeth suddenly skittering down your hallway awakens you, and you feel dread. They’ve finally come to reclaim what you took from them. The locket on your chest burns into you. You rip open your bedroom window and the wind tears at your skin. You flee.
You are wildly capable of destruction. Of cruelty. You have held an infant in your hands. You have thought, however briefly, “I could end this life.” You choose not to. You have felt raw power course through your body and felt frailness in others. Yet, you are kind.
The mirror shows me secrets. Worlds of rust. Fire. Blood. The mirror shows me images of myself, too, damaged in ways I understand far too well. But that doesn’t interest me. I want to see what stands behind me. The closer I get to the mirror, the harder it is to see past myself.