by
Reece Notley
Week Negative Six of My
Life
Watching as a drop of
crimson flows down the sharp edge of the straight blade, I
become entranced by the deep, rich meaty taste of metal in
the air...this single drop of blood poised on a flat gilt
brink...my life begging to be released from the earthly
bounds of my body.
Turning away from the
seductive sharp pain of the razor’s velvet smooth kiss, I
grip the edge of the tub...the clean white enameled steel of
the lion-footed bath digging into my bony fingers. The sobs
breaking the crisp air are mine although they seem to be
empty echoes of my soul’s pain...the guttural sounds coming
from beneath me somehow and not from within. I can feel the
sounds - the brief rush of air that somehow make up language
- they catch in my throat, their harsh bile taste burning my
tongue and filling my nostrils with a sharpness I cannot
shake.
The pain of this existence
is too much to bear....too much to swallow for it rises from
in me and struggles to get out in half-formed sobs and
tears. There is nothing in this darkness of being that I can
hold to me for comfort...the warm embrace of a lover....the
soft purr of a child’s sleep...the comforting sounds of
someone opening the front door, their eyes roaming through
the house in the hopes that I am home....none of these
things exist....there is only the void of reality.
The jelly jar of cheap
wine sits on the pocked counter of the bathroom vanity, its
shadow cast by a small naked bulb swinging above my head in
a forlorn imitation of a bright, happy sun that I have never
imagined much less seen. The muddy yellowish liquid squats
in the small jeweled glass and as I reach for it, the blood
dripping from my cut arm spills down my flesh and tinges the
wine pink, drops of red dancing on piss yellow.
The counter rushes to cuff
me in the head....adversarial in its apathy and the blow
sends a different pain through me. This pounding, heavy
glancing stroke is not the seductive sweetness of the blade
but a mind-numbing lightning strike that leaves behind a
myriad of stars and a redness that fills my eyes. I remember
nothing past that point.....nothing but the cool feel of the
broken tile against my face, the cracks gouging my lip. I
taste metal and wonder if I have somehow swallowed the
peeling fixtures on the sink but I find that my spit is
tinged with the same crimson floating in the yellow wine.
The stars leave my sight and once more, the darkness
embraces me.
 Week Negative Five of My
Life
There is a faerie sitting
on the fire escape.
That’s the only
explanation that I can come up with - for her face is
sweeter than the metallic hug of a blade against my arm and
the syrupy kiss of alcohol from a bottle. She sings - her
voice cat-rough in its song but the earthiness of it shakes
me awake from my mind’s slumber - she mimics a tune I hear
as I sway to the radio that is on while I paint.
Week Negative Four of My
Life
She is rich in flesh - my
faerie - her body isn’t the thin rail of a woman bent on her
own destruction but rather the nurturing grace of a being
sprung from the flesh of a world that people no longer live
in. I close my eyes, trying to envision the feel of her skin
against mine...something sweeter than death and more lively
that a shooting star but there are no comparisons in my life
so the images fall from my consciousness without fully being
born.
I weep at the inability to
touch something from the purity of the air, wind and earth.
I do not believe she sees
me...a shadow against the large paned window of my loft. I
strain to hear her singing...to somehow embroil myself for a
brief moment in the world she spins with her thoughts and
joy but this is a fleeting thing - the cruel taste of
honeyed pleasure ebbs away before I can swallow.
The tears on my face burn
hotter than the blood that runs down my arm when I cut my
flesh open so the earth can have a piece of me back every
night. I can feel the salt in the water stinging my eyes and
it hurts anew...this cursed life that is no gift. How often
have I begged to be released from its chains only to find
myself waking every day?
One day...I will fulfill
my dreams.
Week Negative Three of My
Life
I awoke in the daytime...a
strange and unusual thing for me to do. I lay against the
hard futon and pondered the reason for my abrupt
consciousness....when the harsh pounding of flesh striking
the hard wood door to my loft rattled me. There has never
been another being in the confines of my earthly
prison....and I hesitate to open the door to let this
misguided soul past Charon and into the fiery hell of my
life....yet a part of me cries for the sound of another
voice...actually, the part that screams endlessly in the
garden of my soul is hoarse from loneliness and pain.
Getting up is a chore....I
believe that I fell against the wall before I passed from
the greyness of life to the soft black of sleep. My head
still pounds as I swing the door on its hinges...squinting
against the powerful glare of the light streaming through
clean patches on the windows. I had forgotten the sheer
rudeness of the day as if it alone would be enough to wake a
soul from the catacombs of death.
The form standing before
me is a familiar one....precious silken tendrils of bronze
woven with the fey spun gold surround a candied heart-shaped
face. The open smile on the face of this angel would bring a
god to its knees as it begged for forgiveness in its sins
against man. Her eyes...there does not exist a colour that
man in its extreme arrogance to create could dream of. The
subtle light of her grey eyes fold in the storms that rock
the heavens at dawn and the deep blues of waters untouched
by the filth of humanity. I feel salt filling my eyes and I
swallow, still tasting the sour whiskey on my breath and
smelling the rancid air around me.
Cradled against her ripe
chest is a small, asphalt coloured creature. Its head is
demonic in appearance and the weak scrapes of sound from its
open pink mouth resemble my own tortured cries in the
darkness of my loft. The irony of an angel plucking a
gargoyle from the fully lit skies makes me laugh - a harsh
sound not unlike the creature’s pathetic mews as it
struggles against an embrace that I would live for.
At first, I hear nothing
as she moves her lips for I am entranced by the softness of
the crimson that she painted them - slashes of poppy against
the ivory porcelain of a vase. I shake myself aware and
concentrate on the musical lilt that flows easily from her
rich mouth. I catch briefly the words she says...confused at
first until I realize that she is looking for the gargoyle’s
owner. Looking down at the disgruntled creature, I realize
that it is a cat...and not much of one at that.
She is cocking her head at
me - asking if I am all right - as if the underworld sent me
faeries on my doorstep every day. I nod my head, sending the
fluid in my brain to the front and crashing back into the
bowl of my skull. It begins to ache anew and I find myself
on the floor, staring at delicate pink-stippled toes wrapped
in fine leather sandals. She tucks the cat under her arm and
closes the door behind her. It is heavy and she struggles,
straining at first from its weight but eventually, it swings
shut. Thus imprisoned, she releases the gargoyle and bends
down, cradling my head in her arms.
The bile rushes up to my
tongue and I can taste the foul greenness of it in my mouth.
I turn away, not wanting her to be soiled by me but she
holds me fast - as if I could somehow turn away Nature in
its course. Getting me to my feet is easier than shutting
the door and I soon find myself upright. The fluids in me
are clawing my innards and burning. I cannot walk for I no
longer have feeling in my body due to this touch...this
angelic creature laying her hands on me.
She leads me to my place
of sacrifice...the realm of my spilt blood and tears. She
holds my hair as I purge the foul stench and fluids from my
body and I cry knowing that I have done nothing to deserve
this attention...this feeling of comfort.
I once thought that the
world was a place of pain and loneliness when a person stood
alone in the darkness....I was mortally wrong. There is no
pain greater than the touch of another person as they wrap
their arms around you, knowing that the caress is one brief
instant that will never occur again. There is no greater
cruelty....no sharper knife...no more tragic of an irony
than the sweet taste of love not meant to reside with you
until death. The gods must laugh at the mortal puppets that
inherited the earth...for in our stupidity and selfishness,
we no longer see the essence of our existence...each other.
The world goes black and I
cry out harder than I have ever done so before. For it is
usually the numbness of the dusky grip of sleep that I pray
for every night and for this brief instant, I wish nothing
more than to stay the heavy hand of slumber for the slight,
sticky touch of a faerie.
Week Negative Two of My
Life
The gargoyle remains in my
loft...a scrabbling, soft, furry bundle of chaos that
Moorcock could have written of. It claws open my life...this
needy, mewling scrap. Its stench is something I need to
endure and even try to prevent. It dissected my brushes and
has torn open several tubes of paint, mashing colours
together in a surrealistic blend of its personality. Finally
tiring of its antics, I placed the acrylics in a container
and keep them above its reach only to find that it will
gladly substitute any other piece of my loft for its
entertainment.
Every night it is visited
by my ethereal faerie and she is a soft glowing shimmer on
the fire escape as she knocks on the pane to be let in. I
would like nothing more than to shut the window behind
her....trapping this fey, earthy spirit in with me.
Yet, the fear of her
imprisonment stays an extremely real horror for me. I sleep
at night with the gargoyle tucked upon my person, hoping to
catch a whiff of her on its fur. In my slumber, the pleasant
images of her sitting on the edge of my life, singing in
that cat-mew of her voice quickly changes to flashes of
gossamer grey wings beating against the glass bowl of my
loft, their delicate spines bloodied from their effort and
her body lying pale against the dark red of her life flowing
from her. I have a new horror now....no longer is it the
life I lead but the dreams that I can never attain. This
brings new pain...fresh tears and more blood.
I cry at night and I weep
in the day. The gargoyle dances around me...a black silk
arrayed maypole in its small, dust-laden life. It bats at my
tears as we lie in bed and frolics with the Mother Goddess
that climbs into my loft through grimy windows. I have never
envied another in my life for I found that envy is nothing
more than false hope that ends up dashed against the
hardened cliffs of reality yet against this small, furry
blot I find myself wishing to be it as it bounds with joy at
her entrance.
She brings with her pieces
of her world - a bright psychedelic realm that I am merely a
reluctant visitor. Her laughter is a common sound, mixed in
with the harsh croaks of the gargoyle as it squirms in her
arms. I stand motionless lest I cause her discomfort in my
presence but there has been of late a welcoming embrace....a
bittersweet kiss on the cheek...a brush of a plump, soft
hand through my long dark hair. I close my eyes against
these gifts lest I become too fond of them for they shall
soon pass and I will once more stand in the grimy twilight
of my loft - alone.
Week Negative One of My
Life - Part One
The pungent odor of food
permeates the smell of the paints that are drying on my arm.
I look up from the images of my childhood that have spilled
onto the canvas before me to see a faerie standing next to
me, holding small yellow boxes of oriental fare. The
gargoyle is making its usual genuflection of obeisance to
the goddess that ends her day with the visit to those of
darkness.
She has never ventured this
far into my life and she appears curious of the paintings
lining the walls, stacked like the playing cards that rain
down on Alice’s head. The gargoyle has somehow secured a
large shrimp from my faerie and it wrestles it to the
ground, a small pink smattering of lacerated flesh against a
deepening black coat. Her contralto voice is a
query...asking me for permission to look through my
nightmares. How can I refuse this vision anything? It would
be like telling the clouds of summer not to dance in the
blue skies overhead.
I nod numbly...not
knowing...not understanding how she would see the world that
created me. There lies on the stretched canvas the memories
of blood, sex and terror that shaped me...grief mingles with
oils and acrylics making the half-forged horrors real in
their depiction.
She pulls the first one
from the stack and turns it around for I face all of my
memories to the wall for I cannot bear their eyes upon me. I
watch her as intently as I watch the blood from my body
stain the tiles in my bathroom. Her face...the treasured
piece of living porcelain that haunts my dreams with its
sweetness is covered with a wreath of poignant sadness. Not
understanding why reality should break her happiness, I come
closer as she unfolds each twilight phantasm from their
place against the bricks.
There are tears on her face
and they break me...more than any blow that fell upon my
slight body as a child...more than any word spoken in hatred
against me...more than any grasping, foul act that was
visited upon me in an age of supposed innocence.
I turn away and weep at the
loss of her joy. The world shrinks once more the pinpoint of
blackness that is my soul and I wrap myself around my knees,
rocking back and forth on my heels at the damage that I have
wrought.
In this darkness comes a
light...a single flame of her touch. I feel arms around
me...strong cords of silk and velvet wrap around my chest.
She weeps into my hair and the sound destroys me. She
murmurs something into my ear...dulcet honey words of peace
and trust.
Trust.....a broken stained
glass window lying in the remains of the gutted cathedral
that I call a spirit...a soul. The colours of trust have
been muted...the pure clear gelatin of it long faded in the
glaring sunlight of truth. As for peace....it is a dove that
has never lighted upon the tiled roof of my loft. It is a
myth created by those who are afraid of the realness of the
world...peace is a legend that has gone the way of Camelot
and the Sidhe.
Peace is a lie.
Week Negative One of My
Life - Part Two
She has come in from the
darkness this night...once more through the window for we
share the fire escape. I have yet to leave the brick womb
that surrounds me and enter her loft. I do not think I want
to. I enjoy the ether being that visits me. She has come
back and that is all that matters.
I thought that once I
opened the window to my thoughts, she would take flight and
no longer rap at the glass like a butterfly begging to get
in. Her voice is cheerful...even bright in its timbre. She
bites her lip when she sees me and the embrace she wraps
around me is hot and long. I smell the spicy scent of her
hair and feel the brush of her lashes against my neck. There
is no more potent wine than her.
We talk this night...of
dreams and hopes. Her aspirations are clear and easily
attained for her...a life of pleasure, people and song. I
tell her that I have no dreams other than to one day break
my chains of existence that are forged around me. This
saddens her again and I unthinkingly reach out, touching the
ivory of her cheek. The smile she gives me would light the
universe’s darkness for all eternity.
Is this what fuels the
galaxy in its churning? The single smile of a pure soul in
the bleakness of life? There is no other answer...no other
reason for the world to keep spinning on itself in the void
that is its space. She blinds me and I cannot see the
darkness for a brief moment...how I long for that moment to
exist forever...is that death...the eternal sweetness of a
woman’s joy? I do not have the strength to find out for if I
am wrong, there would be no turning back.
Day One of My Life
The sound of rain against
the fire escape is a steady drone of liquid ice on
steel...it reminds me of standing in my tub, letting the
shower beat down on my body and chasing the dirt and paint
from my chest to the drain. I have not yet seen the angel
that God curses me with and I do not expect to for the storm
that rages outside is equal to the one that rages within.
The gargoyle is standing at the window, scraping away the
little marks that its nose left on the glass. It mews as if
I could somehow cast a net into the space of time and pull
the perfection of her into our lives.
I begin to pity this
creature for it lacks the grasp of understanding. It knows
not that one day the window will cease to be thrown open - a
daffodil of glass spreading its petals for the glorious
sunshine of her presence - and I will echo its cries of
frustration in my sobs at her absence.
The delicate rap on the
melted sand panes is a surprise for I cannot see through the
glass due to the water streaming down from above. A pixie’s
face appears through the torrential sheet and it is my
angel...my faerie...my lloovv - I cannot speak this word for
the sheer power of it makes me shiver. I turn from her
visage - the spark of a star amidst the ebony of the storm.
She frightens me to a level of fear that I have never
experienced before. This force...this key to my soul...the
blade of terror twists in my gut but then the feeling moves
upwards - straight to the heart that has begun to beat in a
furious tattoo of emotion against my chest.
The window opens and she is
beckoning to me...her smile bright in the gloom of my
despair. The fear of her leaving is nothing compared to the
dread of her rejection for now I know the true treachery of
the universe. I hesitate and she speaks, coaxing me against
my fear and terror. She reaches out and strokes my chest...a
light butterfly kiss of a touch.
The faerie pulls on my
shirt...dragging me without resistance to the open portal in
my prison. A swift tug and I stumble, her arms catching hold
of me....leading me through the water drowning the sky. It
is in that moment, I realize the birth of a soul.
I am pushed from the dark
womb of my prison...my loft. The brick lined vulva of my
fetal soul is no longer enough for the burgeoning humanity
that has welled inside of me...I have grown past the
capacity of the dark mother that my life impregnated.
Through the waters that flow from the heavens, I am cleansed
and once more in the stormy effervescence that is the world.
Her laughter comes clean
and quick...the mercury of her being as seductively gilt as
the blade I slice my flesh with every evening. She raises my
arms and the water catches on the small white scars from
long ago pain and pools in the healed shavings of days past.
The force of her pull opens the wound of yesterday and I see
the small beads of crimson mix with the pure, clear water as
the rainstorm washes the blood from me.
I feel reborn and I weep
again....this time in fear of losing a life that has been
shown to me...in happiness at the joy of breathing...in
sorrow of those who have lost this gift and do not have a
well-fleshed faerie dancing on their fire escape in the
evening with her rough songs and beautiful smiles.
She dances around me, the
music is the soft caress of the water against the panes and
metal. It is a waltz that the world as a composer created
just for us...the fiery bright faerie and her dark demon. I
draw closer...ever the moth and touch her face. Words
tremble on my lips...they speak of stained glass windows
resurrected from the ashes of a burnt soul...of small furry
gargoyles invading the silent horror of life...of an untuned
humming that pierces the pain...of the softness of her hair
against my face as we talk in the shadows of my mind...of
unvoiced love.
Month Six of My Life
Tonight, she has brought
the stars in with her. With her gentle touch... the soft
moist feel of her tongue...the silken smooth wisp of her
hair. I have found the portal of heaven and I wish nothing
more than to reside forever in the paradise that she has
created for us.
There are no words...no
thoughts...no gestures more perfect than that of her kiss
and her smile. Except perhaps the pledge that was whispered
into my life tonight...her love.
Year Two of My Life - Late
My faerie is flowering with
life...her body quickened with the weight of our love. It
moves against me as we sleep...this precious spark of light
that is she and I together. The gargoyle is not pleased by
the lack of space and has been quite vocal in its attempts
to supplant me next to her. She laughs at its antics...a
whisper of chiming silver bells deepened with the gold of
joy. She brings smiles to my face and laughter to my soul.
There can be no greater pleasure.
Year Three of My Life -
Early
The unborn angel is moving
now, arms and legs churning with life beneath the stretched
canvas of her skin. I cannot contain the impatience within
me...the need to see this small life born is a chasm that
stretches before me.
My faerie has never been so
beautiful. Her voice is still cat-rough as she sings while I
paint but the images that flux from my subconscious are no
longer dark with hatred. The earth comes in small pieces of
brown and gold, tinged faintly with the glossy green of life
and drenched in the white of light.
And the greys...oh the
silvered greys are her eyes in everything that I paint of
that hue. The quicksilver of mischief...the deepened gilt of
a woman lying in repose after sharing love with someone who
is warmed from within themselves by her fire...the stormy
blue passion of the anger at the world’s blindness to its
gifts. These are all colours that rush freely from me...as
my blood once flowed. But no longer.
Year Three of My Life -
Middle
A star joined us a few
months ago...a precious, beautiful star. He is a slice of
his mother and is as serious in his intent as his father.
She left the naming to me...a strange curious ritual that I
took as a sign of either extreme trust or fancy. I chose
Storm for that is what birthed me and what brought him into
our lives. He will be a tempest that holds a great center of
peace within himself. I strive to make his world one of
sugar and dreams but in her wisdom, my faerie cautions me
that I must ensure that none of the terrors that created me
are inflicted upon him.
I cannot swallow the rage I
feel should someone cause pain to my small piece of the
universe. I would die trying to keep him alive and happy.
Year Three of My Life -
Late
A thunderstorm rages around
us and we are once more waltzing to the music of the world
on the little balcony of steel that overlooks the gathering
of humanity beyond our door. We dance with a piece of life
between us...his laughter as sweet as his mother’s and his
eyes as grey as the rolling clouds that are furiously
pummeling us with their waters. This is life...this precious
gift...this most treasured coin of flesh. I cannot imagine
going back into the darkness for I see now that the
murkiness was merely my own eyes closing against something
that never truly existed. There are sunbeams streaming
through my stained glass and I stand in the middle of the
cathedral in its full glory, letting the colours wash over
me.
Year Four of My Life
My faerie cleaned under the
sink in the bathroom...as Storm has now begun to rage his
tempest with newfound mobility. I cannot help but marvel at
the care that she takes with him...this concern of providing
him with a safe haven to live in. She found tucked in the
dark recess of the vanity a single steel blade, the edge
mottled with watermarks and crimped where it lay against the
unforgiving metal of the plumbing.
She casts a glance towards
me...the experienced angler of my soul. Holding the gilded
flat piece of death in her hand, it catches the light coming
from the now covered bulb in the cut glass fixtures above.
It is crimson again. Not
with the beads of my blood but the disuse of rust and
corrosion. Smiling at me with the candied wine of her grin,
she questions me with a single lift of her eyebrow as to ask
if I have a need for the blade. Joining her in laughter, I
lean forward, tasting her smile with my lips.
*I think I’m done with
this.*
The words fall easy from
me...drops of golden thoughts mingled with crimson dreams.
She flicks the razor
towards the round metal container and it strikes the rim of
the steel bowl. The sound lingers for a brief moment, a tiny
ping of thunder in the gale of our rapture. |
