Step Up, Step Down

Chance came down gutter road all sleek and spiff, doled up for the rent boys.  Like they’d care.

He reeked of woods and spice cologne, but couldn’t hide the candy.  He believed his money was a passport into my world. 

Stupid fucker. 

I licked the smile off him. With his teeth bared, breath bated, eyes rolling back, he finally looked something like a man – but not much. 

They never expect you to interrupt their glamor, like none of us know tricks to hide what we are. 

I sent him back out, hollow with insatiable need.

Fairies make the best whores.

Clean up in the Aisle of Man

Michael sets aside the newspaper, rubs his forehead. He should have been the one with horns, with all the damage he’s done. Righteousness still masks his pleasure at the smiting, but he’s moved from blood and black bile to slow withering. More time to enjoy the sad attempts at repentance.

“When your basement is littered with the corpses of cats and children, you have missed your shot at ascension.”

“But…It wasn’t me! I would never do that!” As if Michael cannot see the soul stains.

Given free reign, he’d shrivel them all.

Perhaps it is time to release his brother.

Objective

“Why is treasure always deep in caves or in rooms atop a spire?”  Lorelei grumbled.

“They’d hardly stick it in the hall closet.” Talking made it harder to climb, but kept her calm.

“Why not? We never ransack normal homes.”

“Fair point.”  I looked down on the glossy twist of two rivers far, far below.

“What does the item we’re after do?” she asked.

“Maybe it keeps lovers from roaming.” I slid in the window.

“Why not just cut ‘em loose and find better?”

“Sentimentality, I suppose.”

I watched her fall, my once clever girl, then took the elevator down.

Burying the Lead

The headlines said Look up! Look up!
The sky – or parts of it – could fall
and you’ll only be safe
if you keep looking up.

So we looked up in panic.
And every time we thought
about how our neck hurt
or that maybe we should check
on the kids or the flowers
or the old lady next door,
the sirens would wail
Look up! Look up!

We kept our eyes trained
on the sky so long
that our bodies got comfortable
looking up.
And they told us how much safer
the world was
because we listened.

One day, the people
who wanted flowers
and a life for their children
and to look after the old people
stopped
looking
up.

They raised their voices
in desperate cries
to warn the world
waken the world
save the world.

But we were too busy looking up
too busy being safe
to hear them tell us
about the monsters.

For their brave stance
they were corralled
shackled
tenderized and seasoned.
And they still tried to warn us
we were surrounded.

When we finally look down,
look back,
we will regret
that we were not blessed
to be the first
to be consumed.

-          R. R. Kovar 9/26/11

Penance

Jana says the soulless were Angels once, the template for all of us gone terribly wrong.

I asked how He could make such a mistake. The priest slapped me so hard I slammed into a pillar. After a day on my knees where the terrible things happen, I didn’t ask again.

Mama cried because my beauty had been spoiled and penance had made me worthless.

Headaches came, like spikes in my brain, every time I passed the church.

I prayed, and Angels came to paint the cathedral red. I sprinkled them with water, blessing their recycled souls.

No one kneels anymore.

Sunshine Laws

“Stand,” the matron says. “Observe.”

We obey, wanting to look away. Stephen glares, defiant. Doomed. I want to rescue him, hold him close. I have loved him for ages. He doesn’t know my name.

“Structure keeps us safe,” the matron says. “You know the dangers out there.”

We don’t, having never seen. Others have been caught trying to look outside. This is my fourth Assembly, but the first time I’ve cared.

Blades fall.

Stephen vaults. Up, over. Gone

He flings open the blast doors.

We scramble for the shadows, skin smoking.

Stephen blows me a kiss, and bursts into flame

Truth and Consequences

I murmured her true Name, sang liquid metal into a ropy structure. I’d observed her so long, sculpting her curves took little effort.

“What is it?” She hugged me, his scent on her skin, her smile his doing.

Bile rose from the pit of my stomach. “A dress form. It needs to be fitted.”

Metal vines enveloped her. She laughed until leaves sprouted to seal her lying mouth, her nose.

“We had an agreement.”  A simple fact.  I should not have had to remind her.

As thorns grew, pierced skin, her eyes offered desperate apologies. Too late.

“All you had to do was ask first.” Why do they never believe me?

Thursday

“Say grace.” Darla scowls by her cast-iron stove.

“It’s your death cult, not mine.”

“Blasphemy.” She flips another pancake.

“Can’t be condemned if I never believed.”

“Someone neglected your education,” she says. “If enough people think you’re disrespecting their beliefs, you’ll hang for it.”

“Faith should withstand challenges and dissent.” I pour syrup over the flapjacks.

The perfect beauty of the Light-Bringer forms in the sticky liquid. No one would report this daily miracle. People have forgotten Him.

I swallow the divine, go to school, and wait to be blessed as a true believer when Iblis awakens the world.

Patterns

I hate making wedding dresses, but like the money. Tense brides, begging to be worthy of white, hear promises I don’t make.

One bad stitch, a single mistake, and my clumsy fingers will ruin the enchantment of their day. You’d expect them to use better magic, stronger, to bind a man forever. Those with the proper spell rarely divulge the price for casting.

Our mothers started a revolution, organic wisdom of the self. We tried to swallow it, but candy-coated romance tasted so much better.

A tiny drop of blood mars a hidden seam. I do my part for freedom.

Transition

New moon leaves the middle night dark.  Soft grass and bramble take turns against my ankles.  Useless in the woods, my eyes adjust in starlit meadow where the fox waits, panting, and I imagine the low light comes from him.  I lower myself, crawl on my belly, slow and steady lest he flee or become unreal. 

His breath tickles my ear like a sigh, and warmth pools in my nethers.  He stretches out  beside me, ginger hair framing a sharp, pale face.  He pulls me to him, knowing I have come to surrender. 

I am so tired of being human.

Pillar of the Community

Mandear denounced me as barren.  Stood up in the square like the wicker witch, I burned with anger they all mistook for shame.  When cold night came and I remained tethered, I wept.  

He came to me then, the horned one, perhaps mistaking my form for his sacrificial bride.  Leather ties broken by his will, I slid into the comfort of his arms, tears forgotten, and let him make me his fertile home.

Eyes avert at my fecund strength, round, whole, His.  When the child comes, I will slake its thirst with their blood, binding them to the new god.