( oleaster )

Consider this disclaimed.

O-le-a-ster
A small Eurasian tree having silvery leaves.

A black hole, I thought, the resentment breeding deep caverns in me, droughts and whirlpools. Black cave. A black hole. That is, I thought, your heart. A vortex that is so vast and so dark and so infinite that it sucks in at the edges and pulls everything else into itself. Into black. Into nothing. Everything. Your heart.

Your castle, collapsed powers and broken pillars sparkling and overgrown with vines, the walls like veins that throbbed in search for blood, the levels shattered in upon themselves. You, a great fleshy mass of thick translucent skin and too many organs and sharp teeth and beady eyes sewn together with wet fluids, body fluids pumping through you and the tunnel of your valves, body like a larvae, mind in sleep. You, becoming human, silver hair pooling all around you, weak and hungry and wanting and needing and hungry hungry hungry insatiable desire for more. Imp face. Fine lips. Sharp teeth. More.

A siren. Empty, starving ugly beautiful. How are we hungry? Rebirth, your blood and veins in your wrists blacker than your eyes, black veins of broken glass. How hungry?

"I'm waiting," you mouthed. No words. Crouched on your heels, angel-hair flowing. Mouth like a dark cave. I'm waiting.

I'm coming now, I thought, wait for me. Something inside me stirring like a cold kiss, ice kiss, breath pushing up through the crocus of spring. I knew you would wait for me. Waiting in darkness, waiting in weakness, starving waiting. Sharp white hungry teeth like a nurse-shark's. Wait for me I'm coming I'm coming.

And so I crept out across the lawn of sand and gravel. From beneath his pile of scratchy quilts and soiled blankets, he stirred. Bronze skin salty hot smell one good eye, amber closed, tousled hair pink wet shiny lips. Thin, thin, thin. All wiry muscle and long legs. Long hard golden legs like a colt's, like a horse's, warm thighs and sturdy calves, a quick reminder of what I was leaving behind in a shack in the wasteland asleep. Kazuma, I thought. Warm, heaving with the gritty deep breaths. I didn't think goodbye. Only Kazuma. That was the only warning he would need.

The sky was a wind chime lake of stars, dry and cold and empty except for in certain spaces where the stars would make strange patterns. Orion's Belt like three stone steps descending down to the soggy bank of the River Styx, and Sirius with his canine fangs and bristling hide howling echoes that would whisper all across the outside, to The Wall. The remorse of ages. Every star a scattering of candia and rubrim and black roses, leading me to you like a blood river in my heart.

When I was there, my feet were sore and pink and swollen, stung with bits of rock. Callous and blistered from the toe tips to the hardened soles. The shoes even were wearing. Though its many levels collapsed and great height diminished, your castle was still an awe to see. Almost, I was hateful of it. Here, I had found perfect love, and fated love, and sacrificial love. Here, I had found the valve of power, metal dragon like a second soul. Here, I had found him, the creature from the other side and ruler of all my fears. The one who had come for me. The one who had driven me to such righteous madnesses and such extreme griefs. The one who was lost, too, and almost died, as here I had almost died, but that I could not bring myself to destroy - not really - to murder as my mother had been murdered, because it had only ever loved me, and now it was entirely a part of you. Here, I'd seen the bleak and lightless brink of death like an empty casket reaching up with mermaid fingers, like the reaper's breath coming up to get me. Hollow snake eyes. Silver feathers. You. You.

Through stifled, hot passages with cracks in the sides and slimy dregs oozing from the walls, cactusy thorn and vine and sickly, darkened weed, and up winding and demolished staircases like stairwells of broken glass, mother of pearl, painted like the opal insides of an empty shell, whose railings were cracked and broken and steps faulty. . .I found you. On her throne. The dream throne, with the wires drinking like blood bats and leeches her lifeblood that had taken in her grief, her pain. Now yours. Now your emptiness alone was left entire, your castle alone, yours, and you alone defeated. You were powerless, but you were strong. You wanted, but you had. You envied, and you hated. And I hated too. A hate worthy of being smiled on by the Furies, by Lillith in hell. In every pore, I hated.

But lust is a cruel mistress.

You lounged. Tiny, languid, pale, silver-haired. Skin like a doll's. Eyes black, icy. Ice King. Hair like oceans frozen over. Hair like blood, like unicorns, like myth. Medusa. You were smoking a French cigarette. Chocolate smoke, pink lips, curved. Snake smile. I could see the sharp canines poking out over the plush of lip, the devil's smile. Ryuhou, you said. It's been too long.

You're supposed to be dead, I said. I watched you disappear.

Don't sound so disappointed, you said. I've been waiting on you for a long time.

I've come to destroy you for the last time. Eyes like rubies. Hard cut gems. Destroy completely.

Vampire smile. See right through me. That look of pure hatred, the raw emotion. Such delicious stuff.

I love it every time.

You don't deserve to live.

You're becoming a tedious bore.

You killed my father.

Your father killed himself. Are you enjoying your fortune, little heir?

I will avenge him. . .

Laugh like wind chimes, like the sconces in the walls. Idle threats. You're wasting my time.

If you came here to kill me, I'm ready to die.

So come at me, you said. Long legs, creamy, parted, milky rose, virgin bride. I'm wide open.

Attack me.

I'd like to see you try.

Stillness. Want, a Beast in me. Desire.

What's the matter? Afraid you'll do something you might regret?

Or is it that Native heathen, Kazuma?

I came to him, on his throne, her throne of blood pearls and debris, spread hot slow kisses down the concave of his chest, soft place beneath the naval like a whispered word, satiny inner thighs, the bone cradle of his hips. Black smiles, spider web of lust, velvet bed satin sheets white skin, painful white. Every blood like spiders crawling inside. Love, lust, hate, want.

Want you. Need you.

Love me. Become me.

I hate you.

I hate you.

I hate you.

How are we hungry? He breathes. Siren. How hungry?

In every pore.

Heart like a black hole.

/finale