Author's Note: First of all, my sincere apologies to my subscribers who got fifty billion notifications of me posting this story. I had to keep deleting and reposting it because the formatting was acting up. But it's finally cooperating.
So, I finally got the chance to watch Miyazaki's 'Spirited Away', and it was amazing. For some reason, I was captivated by the character of No-Face, and I felt a bizarre desire to write poetry about him. So I did.
I don't really interpret this as being a romantic sort of thing, but I've no real objection if you do.
Read, review and enjoy.
This piece was beta-read by Griselda Banks, who is one amazing author.
To he, the shadowed one without a voice
Despising all the others, learned his place
To he who ate and had no other choice
The one who bore no name and had no face.
One empty beyond hope, beyond relief
Sating himself on what he could not taste
To fill, to fill, to hide from all belief
The nothingness his shallow shell encased.
To she, the human child left alone
Who gave expecting nothing in return
To she who shared what he had never known
And so he longed to help her in his turn.
The one called No-Face spoke, as best he could
And hoped that, somehow, she had understood.
But still he hungered, still he wanted more
To take a shape and voice beyond his own
To win the girl who let him through their door
His hollow soul craved her, and her alone.
He offered all the gold that he could conjure
But she could not be bought like all the rest
For neither greed nor gluttony was in her
And he was not the one that she loved best.
His anger rose up thick and fast and sour
And jealousy was bitter on his tongue
He ate and screamed, with borrowed voice and power
Demanding her, the girl to whom he clung.
The one called No-Face watched his body grow
And still, and still, he could not let her go.
He promised her whatever she desired
She asked for more than he could ever give
Without her, he was old and thin and tired
And with her he remembered how to live.
Now bloated and enormous, huge and hollowed
He took her present, small but given free
Then screaming in the agony that followed
"Sen, oh, Sen, what did you do to me?"
She ran and he pursued in desperation
His emptiness consumed him once again
As all his borrowed strength and exaltation
Was taken from him by the girl called Sen.
The one called No-Face, slowly torn apart
The ringing of betrayal in his heart.
His cleansing tore away his darkest places
Left him weaker, once more just a ghost
But now he knew, inside the hollow spaces
When he was small was when he felt her most.
He followed but did not ask for her favor
Her presence was enough, and more beside
Her joy and her content were his to savor
So long as he stayed here, stayed by her side.
The girl moved forwards; he remained behind
She turned away, and he had let her go
He searched himself for what he could not find
A voice and all the words to let her know.
The one called No-Face stayed, and wondered why
The girl named Sen had never said goodbye.