Journal (Comments/Replies Welcome)

[stynr]

Just a place for me to write. I guess this is a test post? Yeah. That's what this is. Testing.

---

1/19

I can feel my fingers slipping from you in the way that birds from rooftops fly: first falling, then reaching. The fact that I cannot correctly hold the shifting shape of your attention should not come as a surprise, and yet it does. The sting of inadequacy is a timid and careful thing in the way it roosts--it sneaks and creeps as if nothing, then comes together in certain steps and lands, here, all at once.
It is you, love.
The painting that never defines itself from brush strokes, the voice that rings uncertain until called. I swear I felt more or less whole until you sat, heavy, in the hold of my open mouth, calling down to the gaping emptiness of my imperfect and unwanted body.
I was always the one who wanted so you lead me to believe that the wanting was a thing you loved. Perched on the ground beside my rotting flesh, you promised in quiet whispers that my lack of plumage did not disgust you, did not remind you of a carrion beast left to wither in the sun and I was food to scavenge the moment you set your steady eyes and beating heart upon me.
You were always the one who left so I believe you took some joy in leaving me. I learned to imitate your perfection while living on my knees, stealing crumbs from about your feet whenever the night cast shadows long enough to hide my shaking mouth and tired eyes.
I think, perhaps, you read me wrong. I am not too proud to beg but settling for one-sided affection seems a cheap repose from what you swore even flightless birds deserve.

 

[stynr]

1/19

There is a line that is set; he will not cross it. I watch him sway to the right, the left, back again, forth. There is a line I've drawn into his skin; he will not wash it away. Hard and aching, he is as ripe as grapes that hang heavy on the vine, like rare fruit not touched by hands like mine. I want to grasp a thing he keeps inside his chest, violent like a caged bird and yet as empty and open as secrets that yearn to be told. He paints himself a martyr, bound by hand and foot, nails not yet through his palms but still hovering. He paints himself like Saturn, devouring the corpse of his son, mouth dripping with blood like juice from the harvest I will not reap. He calls me disciple so I will call his Father 'Father,' I will call him Brother, I will beg for forgiveness and he will place me gently into the jaws of Abaddon, gently into ice. I will--within my becoming--become the thing he needs most to hurt him and he will call me Judas, but I have always been the cross. I have always been cast in gold around his neck, I will always bear him to his ascension with a back that does not break, carrying his rebirth like a mark upon my soul. His muscles strain and the poetry is written where his sweat trails, slicking his skin and stinging his eyes. Even Atlas did not strain so beautifully when Earth was placed upon his shoulders, even Elhanan's hands could not have wavered so patiently. I want to scribe my name against his ribs, dig my hands beyond his skin and whisper the promises of my Mother's Mother against his spine. I want to live as wild creatures do, pounding at the pull of his need. For me, he is ruined. For him, I am made.
There is a line that is set; he is bound by it. The weight of him is heavy in my palm and I want to taste the marrow of his bones. There is a line I've drawn into his skin; he begs to see it burn.

 

[stynr]

1/21

Sometimes, I am greedy when you and I touch. Not because it’s not enough, but because I still feel as if you’ll fade and be gone when the break of day pushes through the hushed promise of my city’s graceless night.
Curled on my side, you curved against my chest, I slip my fingers to the back of your long neck and grip as well as nearly sleeping will let me. Forehead to temple, I press my lips to the side of your face and wish with all of myself for this not to end (please, God, never again), and with all that I am I pray for your gentle life’s continuity. Fingers cupping your jaw, I write out the words pounding in my chest against the slope of your cheek, because sometimes saying it out loud is too much—because sometimes I’m so scared of losing everything that I choke on the feeling of impending martyrdom and my back is too much like the shape of a cross for kindness.
I take what I can while I can, a child with the memory of hunger imprinted on my skin.

 

[stynr]

It is a lonely creature that stands at night and thinks, “Am I the end?”

It is a lonely man that sits by day and thinks, “Have I begun?”

The change is not easy—these things never are; the creature he’s become is unknown—these things tend to be. His unmaking is slow and painful, black-breached birth witnessed only by an empty sky and the slow burn of earth, hunger, sweat, demand.

Remarkable little things, they are. The gravedigger has never kept pets, but the fox and the young buck seem to be adapting. It’s odd, the sense of family that stands next to secrecy, the lack of guarding against being found. They know, so he is known, and it’s a slow fear that curls in his gut at needing as much as he is needed. They watch him from empty eye sockets and he stares back like broken life is better than an empty skull.

The emotion is unwelcome. At times, he wonders what it would be like to snap their fragile necks, one in each hand. Bones in his mouth and beneath his boots, he wonders how long the dolls will remain unbroken. At this, the creature does rear its gnarled head and whisper, “No.”
It would seem their porcelain fantasy is safe, for now.

He sequesters the need for flesh in secret touches and brushes of skin, wondering in absent moments if there is a way to claim without consuming. Late at night, in his separate bed, he lies awake with only silence as his companion and looks to his hands.

The gravedigger has never seen blood, there, but he can see (clearly, so clearly) where his flat palm pressed to the clammy pale of one’s back, and the place a well worn callous brushed, through cloth, a dusting of dirt from another’s frozen cheek. He slips his fingers into his mouth and runs his tongue against the palm of his hand; it feels like betrayal, but the taste is sweet.

Mine.

It is a knowing creature that stands at night and thinks, “I am the end.”

It is a knowing man that sits by day and thinks, “I have begun.”

In the curl of eternity and weightlessness and light and sound, he has discovered this: hell is empty and all the devils are here. In the single bead of eternity and pressure and darkness and silence, the Gravedigger has discovered this: so is God, for he has made Him.