Echo

(Prompt: A more in-depth, first-person view of Glenn Dunn.)

Letting go is the easiest thing in the world to do. It’s taking up the burden of life again that’s difficult. I’ve spent many years being nothing, being empty, being perfect to whoever needed something perfect…it wasn’t until I could see myself that I saw it for what it was.

When I was young, I was bright and smart and brave and cute. To the girl who lost her kite, I was the reckless tree climber. To the boy who ran into bullies, I was the Dirty Harry hero of the kickball field. To the frustrated teacher, I was the smart-ass with so much potential…by year’s end, I was passing with high marks and her faith was restored. To the principal, I was the pampered lawyer’s son who always had an excuse, and I always did. It was easy back then. It felt right.

It was high school when I realized…when the girls started to look, when the furtive and scared boy dreamed of someone to share his secret. When the team needed a true athlete and the honors society needed an academic decathlete…I was the man they needed, and there was always another place for me to fill, another role to play. I used to think that I loved them all, or that I was the villain they thought I was, or that it was all so very simple. Those crucible years are full of fire and passion, full of confusion. I was never confused. I was never anything.

It was high school when I realized that I didn’t truly care. I was doing what was expected, and because I had no stake, it was easy to pretend. I could bend where others would struggle. I could lie with a heart free of guilt. I was the perfect kiss, the touchdown pass, and the prom king, because I never once had to compromise my spirit. There simply wasn’t enough inside me to compromise. It wasn’t until recently that this scared me. Back then, I thought that I was comfortable and perfect. Perhaps I was.

I killed a cat once, to see if I’d get some sick, serial killer thrill at some act of God. Instead, I watched the fur stain and smelled the stink of death, and for a moment, I wondered if the cat even knew what to think of me. I certainly didn’t. I haven’t harmed another creature that wasn’t on a menu since.

College was easy. I developed a system of score, because I was bored. My thesis statement that never went to any professor was on social economics. I could assign value, read the supply and demand for words, feelings, and actions. It came naturally to me, and without a heart to get in the way, I scored high. I made the right connections. I passed the right tests with the right help. I went to the right parties. Then, I dropped out.

At the time, I didn’t know why I did. My father was furious, swearing to cut me off if I didn’t take a ground-level job for his firm. The choice was simple math, so there I was. I still went to parties. I took classes at night, worth far less prestige but where I met a different class of people. My portfolio expanded. I’d quit because I didn’t care about the score, not really. I cared about being comfortable, challenged. I wanted to grow.

I wanted to win. Until it happened, however, I had no endgame. I had no idea what winning meant. Was it happiness? I had never been happy, so I had no way of knowing. Was it wealth? That path felt too easy, and a game of diminishing returns. Power? I had power, all that I needed to secure the life I wished. I had no ego to stroke with excess. What, then, did it mean to mean, to a man without a soul?

When you descended, I learned the answer. Your fall, the flame of your blood and the smoke of your tears – they gave me my answer.

Until we found each other, there was no victory. Now, with a purity that has never touched this world, I feel. My economics are ablaze with sensation, and a sense of justice that cannot compromise. I give you a path and you give me a destination.

I was an echo chamber, and now I have a song. I am possessed. I am your possession. I now possess what you represent, and you possess a form beyond abstraction. We are, and we are mighty.

Thank you.

Idols

(Prompt: The first line came to my head and stuck there.)

I catch the ones that she’s too sweet for.

She’s my angel, my inspiration. My back to her shoulders, I’m her shadow. While the light shines on her, it stops with her and it’s left me cold. They think I hate her, that I resent what she is and what she has become, hate her for being clean. They’re fools. She’d be nothing without me, and I’d be too much without her. She keeps me in my place, and that place lives. It breathes. She keeps me clean like lye; of course it burns.

They think I’m cruel. I play with too many lovers. I dress in dark leather and I wear sharp metal and I scare mothers and fathers. I’m the bad body, the demon, and the player. I’m the wicked one. I represent a certain needful demographic that she could never touch without a proxy.

They’re wrong.

I won’t let them touch her. I step into the dark and bring them trembling before her throne. I am the demon, and she is my God. I serve her from my empty place, and she receives me with a compassion you will never know.

They say that she has suffered and risen above a life that I embrace, and that much is true. I’ve seen her wet. I’ve seen her ugly. I’ve smelled her sweat, and I have smelled her at her nastiest. I pushed her back. I screamed and shouted. I left a bruise on her cheek, and I was in agony. All the stories talk about her struggle, her adversity. Her pain. She couldn’t feel a thing until I broke that mask of invincibility. No one could smell her until I shattered it. I was her villain, but now she is the martyr. I was the obstacle that she needed to overcome. I lost her then.

They draw her with angel wings. Her light’s severe and striking. She’s never once forgiven me, but she pretends to forget. They tell her to abandon me, and she ignores them. She remembers that I smelled her, and she keeps me close. She sends me down to feel the way she felt, and I can’t deny her. She tells me that I’m beautiful the way I am, and I accept her. She’ll only touch me if I smell like another woman, another man. They call her pure, and this is true. They call her innocent, and I could almost cry.

She stands above me, hands on my shoulders. She keeps my head low, throws her thigh against my cheek, her nails into my hair. She makes me see her as the animal, makes me smell her. Only I can see her as she is – a woman. Only I can worship her as her true self and not an idol. She hurts me with her words and with her kindness, with the way she forgives me but she never lets me rise to breathe. She’ll never let me heal. She’ll never let me want to.

She’s a monster, with all the fire and heat and hate of ancient angels. She is an angel. They just don’t know what angels are. She makes me be her demon. I am a demon. You just don’t know how demons hurt, how they must always serve a master. I drink her sins, so she can be the everything you need of her. I drink her sins because that’s everything she’ll let me have.

She used to kiss me. But those were in our human days. You don’t want the humans, though, and we couldn’t survive in human ways, not with the passion you fed to us. We were warped and changed. We became what you demanded. So she will rise above, and I still lie below and at her feet. You put her on that pedestal, and she put her heels into my back. Our loving audience…

I miss the days when she had a name. Now she has all of you, and less of me, and I keep what I can reach to dull the memories.

Don’t judge me. Don’t you dare. You like me better this way.

Stark

She would never move away from here, and now she knew why. It was the fourth day that had been the hardest. The sky was damp and gray. The air was damp and gray. The world was dark and gray. It seeped into her like morning mist and left her feeling all of her sweat, all of her stink, all of her flesh. She felt like meat, and in the mirrors back and front, she looked like it.

She felt raw, exposed, and hewn open. Along her spine were scissor holes of deep blank ink, lacy ribbons weaving like a corset down to the small of her back. The trail picked up on the backs of her thighs, the backs of her calves. She was sewn up the back, inside of herself. She felt too thin in the damp, too pale in the soft light out of the open loft window. She could just make out the shape of her ribs under her breasts, tipped red and sharp from the cold. Her lips were the same pinched-skin red, even unpainted. The bags around her eyes were the same red, with eyeshadow to match.

Against her neck, the new red lines of new gold hoops gave her permanent jewelry. She wanted something to shine, needed it, and the ink was an impulse. Maybe it had been a mistake. Against her flesh, the precious metal lacked its sheen. She looked as half-alive as the city outside the sill.

Then it happened. The cirrus feathers fluttered apart and a wicked scar of white tore across the sky, hot and sharp. The mist was revealed and sent into a swirl. It was escaping that pure shaft, a sword of light in a world without. Old buildings went from austere to shining white and pure. Dull brick shone bright against the gray backdrop. Trees and grass became the deepest greens the girl had ever seen. Her skin, once pale, was transformed into porcelain. She wasn't a corpse; she was a work of china, a doll that someone loved or would love. Hope had a shape and a color and an impact.

She wrapped a blanket around herself and sat in the sill long after the shaft of light departed. There'd be another, or something like it. This was her favorite time to live. This was her home. It was everything about her, right or wrong. It was right.

Rabbit Food

(Written on a smartphone.)

Natalie was starving, and you'd never know from watching her feast. She lived, she lived, she dated, and she danced. She knew success and friendship. She lived with challenges and met far more goals than she missed.

Then she drank in private. She turned a love of tender ropes and gentle chains into a true fantasy - unreal but remarkable in execution. She was a prize and a pawn, and it was all as pretty as glass and just as filling in her belly. She worked until she played. She played, but it never worked.

Why? Her diet was light and empty, planned and organized. She'd found the life solution, and it wasn't living. Everything felt right, but nothing felt raw. She was processed. All preservatives.

Looking into her was like seeing half a science room mannequin. From a privileged angle, you could see right through her insides. She was dying the slow death. It was a nightmare she wouldn't remember until it was too late to wake up.