1997

Prompt 1 from Revisit Death: Horror

I will not be putting in the prompt; so y’all just have to figure it out. Winner gets a prompt half off.

This is the first piece in the series that will be public, if it gets too hairy I will put under lockdown. All my work is Stream of Consciousness, zero draft.

Edward Marlo Ruiz gave me this prompt, first in line, also another incredible writer check out his work.

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[Original photography done by: Spain, Madrid, Lavapies - 1997. Photo by Cristina Garcia Rodero, Magnum Photos, Portrait of a Spanish Boy by Frank Scherschel ] & then distorted by yours truly.

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Red is the color of love. Red is the color of iron webbed between my teeth. Its hungry slurp, aloe sponges the enamel. I’ve got a new pair of jaws. Hermanita told me it’s how, I’ll steal all the warmth from her eyes. When she looks at me, I see bodies made of steel without milk inside.

A pin prick on the skin. The smell of roses blossomed in sea salt. Her voice soft, shivers away from her disguise. Artemis with her spear. She calls me Eddie Orion, a nebula untouched. We chase the moon, starless twilight. I tell her, I’ll heal her behind the brown locks and balmy eyes. I place her arms in mine. In transit of change, her finger wedged into my gums.

Sandpaper tongues scratch the surface. They want to set me up. They want to catch me, everywhere. I see them behind the trees. Shrouded entities, without eyes or faces. I feel their skin sagging against my arms, puddy imprints the medullary rays.

Within me, mine, her apple. A downward spiral with imperfect lines.

The sun rose when I saw steam descending from her torn wilted clothes.

Dirty linen old folk gossip. Plunges into the back alley of our house. Old ghosts wish to make amends. I pretend they’re not real, their shadows want more of me. You belong here, Artemis. I rest my scalp inside your symphonies. My years got colors, years left until I’m broken. We live together dejected by sensation.

My head tilts to the left, my Tanjore doll head breaks past the parameters. I alter embryos for our shared fate. We’re part of the same closed circle.

My muzzle breaks loose when we’re out here. Weaves the night in, crept behind my chest and reaches inside. Touches the valves of my blood flow and snaps them shut. Seduced by an ocean of discontent. Primal in nature. Red.

She tastes like stone fruit in the summer, wet musk in the winter. Ferments underneath her fingernails. Her lips taste of righteous charades. Dry cracked lips, shattered glass on the floor. Her voice isn’t loud enough past the white walls. Contralto frequencies toil inside my ribcage. Expanding and retracting.

Hermanita told me, Artemis has arrows for every man. They stay dead with brutal penetration. Men are simple peasants who wish to be Gods. Countries made men impenetrable. Women made Artemis for protection. You’d only be lucky to be born under her spell.

Artemis has different colors for contrasting aeons. My fears have become phobias. There beyond the windowsill, hearts collect dust. She’s the thorn in my side, canvases collected, her hide shines under sunlight. When I escape, she leads me back here to disappear. Her infectious voice soothes my disease with ease. Convicted by her smile, my paradise is thousands of chimeras in flight.

Bricks of our tower are dislodged, her arms and legs live inside held by glue. She burns at the stake within me, oh, my love. Her honey lips part as they touch mine. Candied innocence shedded feral. Souls swab our tainted blight, heavenly tongues stained.

Delightful helms of a sailboat, waves crash at our sides. Exuberant destruction, limerence.

The apples grow each season, ripened with her sticks. I obsess over her spear, her puncture. Locked her up, where she sleeps. Film covers her eyes as she hides from time. My nebula never felt sharper.

Under the floorboard, the wood breathes.

Artemis mimics other faces and exalts, my sabreur. Her spear takes different shapes, my harvest lush and rich. Variance is my only burden.

I nip at the heels juices deep inside. Wrinkles on my face, it tethers and coils of old world ghosts. In despair, I am desperate to escape. Artemis lies beside me, her tortured artist. She promises to sing, La Cenerentola. She begs for sunken ships where stars become the light when we drown.

The crevices of her flesh unpeel, Red. I feel her within, too sweet to bite. Bubbles around the gums and lodged into my throat. Lambic filled to the brim. Amber is the color of her eyes. Muddled nerves, her song of thunder. Flesh one, never able to retreat. My lambs stay in their shelter. Flesh without a name, there is only Artemis.

A man does not conquer for control, they consume until all the air is gone. My sisters weep between the groves, a flock of crows at their side. Dressed in black, the end is on my mind. They take my hands with a quick pinch. They’ll leave my side. Hermanita’s face distorts into an old woman I’ve never met.

Artemis stands naked in the grove, the village moves daydreaming around her. She’s invisible with three arrows sliced through her heart. Her lips smell of sulfur and gasoline. Cigarette smoke perfumes into the air, a pyre yet to burn. She takes pieces of my garments and begins to eat my cotton in her mouth. A door is open no one would believe exists. Artemis has to make a gown or she’ll be late. She badgered my clock brain. Calls it sickness. She touches the number 12 and counts backwards in three.

The old ghosts begin to take the bones lodged in the tower. The lambs no longer belong with their shepherd. Her hands caress my temple down to my cheekbone. Expression shifts when the film lifts up over her eyes. Shutters open. She whispers, “I am you, I am we.”

My legs shake in the grove, villagers gone to nestle skin to skin, hides hung over the walls, to cover the curse of our bloodline. Families of flies live outside our homes. All the lost lambs climbed beyond the wood to reach the stars. There’s a spy in my house of thieves, they seek Orion in the promising land.

I am the one who cannot see. Artemis blocks my vision, she knows I can’t help myself. Body bags cover the corners, triumphant of their sacrifice. Antithesis to precision their bodies in motion. Artemis watches my expressions with curiosity as the trinkets disappear. The madness of the red is courtship laid to waste. My bowtie unravels to erase the difference. It undoes my burden, it sets me free.

Artemis holds out a red apple, “I am you with the red.”

Mouth open, every crunch rips at my gums. Unforgivable change. Juice rolls down my fat lips at the corners, thirst burns. The more I swallow, the more I need. It stains my lips, she tells me I am defected. Seeds live in the beds of my gums where my teeth used to be. Every seed for a lamb lost.

“Edward loves red apples.”

Stem stuck in the throat, punctures. It expands needle pointed, jagged little edges. Love is the color red, an arrow.

Artemis has two left.