You

If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die. That’s what they told you from the very start. If an author pines for you, you’ll be immortalized in their words. Your eloquence will be captured in their prose as they strum at the chords of your heart and kiss the innermost chambers of your naked soul. So let me take off your clothes and take you in my arms.

Let me enfold you. Let me take your heart in my hands and feel it beat my name. Let me be the air that fills your aching lungs and swells within your chest. I’ll breathe life into your soul and be the man who basks in a beauty far greater than his own. Throw your bones against mine and feel the solidarity of my embrace. Let my kiss your skin, stroke your hair and settle your racing mind.

You are poetry in motion; a landscape of flesh so exquisite that to lay my trembling hands upon you causes my heart to skip a beat. I am nothing more than a foolhardy wanderer determined to claim you as his own. You are the fluidity and grace that course through my life as surely as blood passes through my veins. So let me enfold you. Let me take away your pain.

Feel my hands on your hips, my fingers tracing the contours of your curves. I’ll kiss your dimples and run my fingers through your hair. Feel my lips on your neck as I whisper my hopes, dreams and desires against your skin. No words could ever describe the beauty of your cheeks as they burst to life with a rush of blood to the head. I want you to lose yourself in my eyes. I want to be your reason to breathe.

Let me feel you writhe beneath my sheets as I take your breast in the palm of my hand or interlock your fingers with mine. Let me devour and defile you as I pin your hands above your head and leave teeth marks against your skin.

You are divinity incarnate: a woman of heavenly beauty. Angelic in poise and grace. So let me encompass you in my arms and show you what I have yearned for. Let me worship the ground beneath your feet.

Embrace my warmth as I set your world on fire. Watch the flames of my passion rise and fall with every kiss and every touch. Feel the euphoria wash across your skin and cause your hairs to stand on end as my hands grace your delicate surface. I’ll tease your goose bumps and watch them prickle beneath my fingertips.

Let me peel back the layers of your soul and quell your innermost fears. I long to make love to your flesh. But it’s your mind that I crave the most.

So open your heart and take me inside. Tell me your innermost insecurities and fears. Let me take away your pain and carve my name into the chambers of your soul. Let my love enfold you as I capture your magnificence in my prose. You are poetry in motion; the apple of a writer’s eye. So throw your bones against mine until we become one. Let me take your heart in my hands, let me feel it beat my name.

Landscape

landscape

I lie beside her and watch her back rise as her lungs fill with air. She breathes so carelessly in her slumber. She holds her breath deep in her lungs for the faintest of moments before she exhales and her body melts into the softness of the bed. A smile creases her lips as my fingertips graze her shoulders; firmly enough for her to feel my presence, but light enough so as not to rouse the muse twisted between my sheets. Her lips curl so gracefully in the corners, her cheeks dimple in response. This woman, this muse of mine is beautiful; from the crown of her head down to the tip of her delicate toes. And as I lie beside her and watch the rhythmic movement of her breath I can’t help but imagine how glorious it would be to shrink myself so that I can explore every inch of her not as a woman, but as a landscape.

I would start in the small of her back. To my north would lay the bottom most ridges of her spine. Small vertebrae visible beneath the smoothness of her skin, stretching away into the distance until they slip between the rolling expanse of her shoulder blades and vanish beneath her silky hairline. To my east and west her sensual hips arc and curve beneath her sleeping frame. And to my south the gorgeousness of her buttocks rises beneath a fragment of crisp white sheet that is draped across her. Such choices. Such wondrous journeys await me as I discover her beauty inch by glorious inch.

I would move south, slowly venturing to the crest of her round buttocks. I would cherish my climb; pausing to inspect a freckle, or to marvel at the intricacy of a birthmark. Her skin would be so smooth; my calves would ache rewardingly as I journeyed to the summit. I’d stand atop her rear and pull the binoculars from my hip, casting my gaze down the seemingly endless legs that stretch across my sheets. Oh how I would die to walk the length of her luscious legs I would think to myself before realising that in my miniature state I can do just that.

I’d march across the suppleness of her hamstring, descend the hollow at the rear of her knee, and traverse the concave of her calf. My journey would take hours. I’d stop to note pigmentation here, a scar from a youth filled with sport there, until I arrived at her ankle. I’d follow the runway of delicate bone past her padded heel, through her arch until I reach her toes. Her nails would be painted brightly, my footsteps tickling her slightly as I walk right off of the tip of her big toe onto the sheets before journeying across the bed and climbing onto her opposing limb, reversing my long walk back to her buttocks.

My journey would take me across her hips. Her gorgeous rounded hips would be like walking across a beautiful knoll. They’d rise gently from her back and roll across her side before delivering me to the firmness of her stomach. I’d reach her navel and camp by its edge. I’d dangle my weary legs over the edge and I would marvel at the feeling of her stomach muscles beneath her tantalizing flesh.

Rejuvenated, I would journey on to the base of her sternum. I would take my time to walk beneath her stellar breasts, running my palm against their curves before ascending each one to marvel at the loveliness of her areola. My, they are beautiful. Their pinkness so perfect against the whiteness of her untanned flesh; it is so exquisitely her. I can’t help but imagine how my loins would cherish this moment atop of my muse’s chest.

But my travels would not cease, I would venture on to the nape of her neck, and descend into the crevice of her collarbone. I’d track a path across her neck and over the precipice of her jawline until I arrived at her lips where I would plant the smallest, most fragile kiss she had ever received against them. I’d move to her ear and whisper into it just how completely she moves me as the scent of her hair fills my senses. I would move around her hairline and descend her occipital ridge until I arrived at the upper echelon of her spine between the two matching crests of her shoulders.

I’d begin to walk slowly now. More aware that my journey across the luscious landscape of her if drawing to an end. I’d run my fingertips across her shoulder blades and kneel to plant the softest of kisses against her skin. And when I finally arrive at the small of her back once again I would turn ever so slowly to view the beauty of her once more. My eyes would fill with tears. Neither of sadness nor those of joy. But the tears of a man who has witnessed something more extravagant that he ever believed possible. The tears of a man who believes in God, for he has found the true magnitude of his work in the flesh of a Goddess.

But alas, I cannot shrink to such a minute state of being. I cannot worship my muse as a landscape and venture along her supple flesh. I cannot plant those miniscule kisses against her skin, or stand atop her buttocks with a yearning within my soul. But I can lay beside her as she sleeps and watch as her lips twitch and eyes fritter with the makings of a dream. I can hold her tight as she stirs, and tuck the loose strands of hair that fall loose behind her ear as she wakes. I can be hers, and she can be mine.

Crime Without Punishment

You broke into my chest and stole my heart. You looked me in the eye, asked me to take your hands and then robbed me blind. Like a thief in the night you moved so silently; climbed through the boarded up windows of my soul and pillaged from within. You should have been punished! You should have been reprimanded and rebuked! But yours was a crime without punishment. You stole my heart, and all I could do was watch as held it in your trembling hands and told me to trust that you would keep it safe.

I told you that your body was a landscape. I was supposed to be the vicious world eater with an insatiable lust to destroy the map. But now I feel you inside me; feel my heart beating your name and know that I have been bested by the contours I fought valiantly to conquer. I scaled your breasts, left my teeth marks on your neck and impressions of my hands on your hips. But these marks were only skin deep; you broke beneath the surface and saw the nakedness of I. You forced your way into a place no other has ever reached and carved your name into the fleshy chamber of my humanity. You took a soul plagued by anger and stole from it. You took away the anger; plundered from the well of bitter thoughts. You should have been punished. You should have been admonished.

But how could I ever hurt someone so darling? How could I ever dream of stringing you up like a thief and tearing apart your innocence? Your crime was one committed through best intentions. A soul descended from the heavens, dragged through the mud and tarnished by a wolf. I could have been your fall from grace. But instead you lead me to the waters of my rebirth. You stripped me bare and asked me to bathe until I was washed clean. So I sank beneath the surface until I was engulfed by a world so calming, so wondrously silent and tranquil.

Alone with my thoughts I could think of nothing but you. I could feel you with me; imagine your fingers interlaced between mine. I was the devil. I was the world eater and wolf. But you tore apart all the misguided preconceptions I had of you and I. You showed me in the silence beneath the waters just how beautiful we could be.

I emerged born again; infatuated and no longer alone. I had never imagined I could be so contented; so smitten and besotted. I tried to fight it. I wrapped my fingers around your throat, left bite marks and bruises on your legs. But I couldn’t fight the remorse or shake the feelings of regret. The thief who stole my heart deserved more than I could ever give. You broke open the vault of my heart and found it barely beating within.

You took it in your hands, stared deep into the eyes of a wounded beast and nurtured it back to health. You committed a crime without punishment. You stole my heart to set it free. You should have been chided, strung up and ousted for your devious ways. But all I could do is stare into your eyes as you asked me to trust you and place my hands in yours. You stole my heart, now it’s yours to nurture and keep.

I am at your mercy. A wolf swallowing his own pride. I am vulnerable and exposed. You are the thief who committed the ultimate crime.

An ode to you, the saviour of the ferryman’s intrepid passenger

350px-Charon_and_Psyche
‘I was lost, until I found myself inside of you.’
-Austin Carlile

The saddest part of it all was that I just didn’t realise how lost I truly was. I was an intrepid traveller traversing a mind as volatile as the river Styx. Guided by Charon, my soul was dying, withering like a flower with no hope to bloom. But you saved me. My heart and mind were caught in a vicious storm of chaos and self-loathing. I knew not who I was or what purpose my life served as I drifted between this existence and the next. I was naïve enough to pine for something greater than I, but I was too insignificant to be deserving of my dreams.

Then I heard your siren’s song. It rose from the depths of the earth, drowning out the cacophony of withering souls screaming for salvation by the river’s shoreline. I ordered Hades’ ferryman to steer towards your heavenly calls and he moored his vessel before you. You took my hand in yours as I disembarked and pulled me towards your bosom, your comfort became my solace and the savageness that had plagued my existence slowly faded. I was lost my love, but in that instant I found myself inside of you.

You showed me a world unlike anything I had ever imagined. A realm of possibilities where I was limited only by what my mind could conceive. The first time we became one I was so nervous, so unsure of myself. I fumbled as I gave life to your flesh, my thoughts disjointed, my fingers moving unsteadily as I fashioned your landscape. It was frantic and short lived, and when I stood back to admire what we had created I was stunned by the simplicity of our artwork. You were so beautiful and well-rehearsed; my awkwardness was barely concealed behind a wave of passion as phrases and irrational ideas raced through my head.

But you can never belong just to me. I know of your beauty and the intense lovingness of your touch better than most. But I can never possess you. Instead I am forced to share you with strangers the world over. Some would say that this is ill-fated love, that it is dangerous to a soul as complex as my own. They would snicker at my willingness to accept your infidelities and call me submissive and weak. But how can they ever comment on the intricacies through which I love every part of you, without first knowing the thrill of your all-encompassing embrace? I share you with others and my heart breaks when I see you answer their prayers or place their dreams before my own. But it is better to live with the knowledge that I am one of many than to never have known just how complete you make me. Oh my love, I was so lost aboard that demon’s ferry. I was a soul plagued with a life of nothingness, self-doubt casting fret channels in my brow. But now I have found myself inside of you.

I know not how to love another as deeply as I love you. You took a man parading himself as a wolf in sheep’s clothing and you allowed him to undress and expose his naked soul. You took a boy as afraid of living as he was of death and showed him that with your guidance he could create a legacy that would survive his mortal form. You took me in my broken state and you rebuilt me until I was whole. You taught me to relish in the beauty of the crack marks left in my flesh from pieces held together by something far stronger than any glue.

You found me aboard Charon’s ferry adrift on a river of fire and brimstone, and you kissed me with your lips, breathing life into my dying soul. I was so lost aboard that wretched craft, and now I have found what it means to be alive once again inside of you, my beautiful muse. I was once a fumbling amateur exploring the contours of your flesh, but through your patience and your guidance I have flourished into someone stronger than I ever thought I could be. Now every time we dance, when you place your palms upon my shoulder and whisper inspiration in my ear I wish that I could get down on my knees before you with reverence and pay you the penance that you truly deserve. For you are my beautiful muse; without you I would be so lost, so cold. But I have found myself inside of you. You have made this boy into a man. This man into a wolf. This flesh into a legacy. And you’ve taught me how to strip back the layers of my soul and stand naked before the world for all to see.

I was lost, until I found myself inside of you.

Digging up the grave

White knuckled with calloused palms and blistered fingers he drives the blade into the earth. His pencil thin spine aches as his shoulders strain to lift the heavy load. He twists at the torso and tips the blade, allowing the thick clumps of dirt to fall atop of the steadily rising pile. Sullen and withdrawn, made from sinew and ropey muscle, he toils underneath a clouded night sky. Guided only by slivers of moonlight slipping through the opaque air he drives the shovel into the earth, using his foot to help the blade penetrate the quickly hardening dirt.

Two foot wide. Six feet deep. A silence all-encompassing and beautiful awaits.

He tips a load onto his pile and flexes his aching spine. Tossing the shovel against the earth he reaches for his bottle, gritting his teeth as the lager washes across his tongue. He stands in a shallow grave, the lip resting just below his knees. His fingers ache and the bottle cools their throbbing. How disgusting he has become that he must labour through the night to bury bodies in his yard. Or maybe he should consider himself beautiful. Maybe there is something lovely in the physicality of burying the dead.

They’re lying beside him. The deceased sleep just three feet away. Wrapped in crisp white linen, they capture the light cast down from the heavens and reflect it like a series of lighthouses perched against the merciless ocean. He knows that they’re presence is a risk. The neighbours will be watching. The nosey bitch in the two story mansion beside him will undoubtedly be standing in the safety of her locked bedroom, chewing her polished fingernails as she dials the police station. That’s the problem with society nowadays. Every mother fucker is too busy peering over the fence at what their neighbour is doing that they fail to notice how fundamentally flawed they themselves really are. Let her call, he thinks, she’s done it a hundred times before. Just like the boy who cried wolf, no one believes the nosey bitch and bastard watching his backyard.

He picks up his shovel and strikes at the earth again, feeling his shoulders ache with pain before he even lifts the weighty load. It’s a risk to have the dead with him. But it’s a peril worth taking. There’s something so thrilling about having the dead lay in eternal slumber beside him while he prepares their grave.

He drives the blade into the earth again. And again. It’s becoming so dry, so hard. His blistered fingers burst and warm liquid runs down his fingertips before slipping down the timber shaft of his shovel. He grimaces in pain with every strike of the earth now, skin tearing with every blow. His brow is furrowed and lined with sweat, and the moon fades completely as the heavens take pity on him and weep with the first droplets of rain.

Two foot wide. Six feet deep. A silence all-encompassing and beautiful awaits, punctuated with the delicate pitter-patter of rain falling against the disturbed earth.

He picks up his pace, the rain slicked handle of the tool difficult to hold with his damaged hands. His boots are heavy, his shirt clings to his skin before he removes it, tossing the heavy garment in a balled heap beside the pile of dirt slowly leaking back into the earth from which it came. He digs and digs, until his spine feels fractured, his hands tremble and his mind pulses with a dull throb. Tossing his shovel to the side he climbs from his hole, staring down at the beautiful rectangle cut haphazardly into the earth.

The heavens open wider and the pitter-patter turns into a torrent of water that turns the yearning grave into a burial site with an inch deep pool at its base. He moves towards the bodies, and stares down at them with a wicked grin. He reaches for the first, that prick called Anxiety and drags it to the edge of the hole. The rain has made the body heavier than he had remembered. He can still recall the day that he killed him. He had learned that there was nothing to be fearful of in this life than the idea of fear itself. He had grown wise, no longer afraid of the crippling nature of the beast. Creeping up on the bastard he drove a blade through his spine, ripping it upwards violently to sever the spinal cord.

The fucker tumbles into the depths and he stands and watches the muddy water leach into the white sheet before moving for the next. Insecurity was a bastard child that had left him feeling damaged. He remembers the day that he outgrew his need for such a vile companion. He’d always feared his perception in the eyes of others. The way he looked at troubled him, his body shape not quite desirable. But he had ripped off his shirt at a swimming pool, paraded around half naked for the world to see. And when he realised no one was watching he took his shirt, wrapped it around the pricks’s throat and choked until Insecurity’s heart exploded.

His final victim is the heaviest. Guilt had always been his curse. He felt guilty for the choices he made, the ones he didn’t. The people he hurt and the people who had hurt him. The bloated rain soaked corpse feels like deadweight as he heaves it towards the hole. Liberation from this heinous acquaintance had been brutal and bloody. He’d taken a surgeon’s blade and cut it from his skin. His conjoined twin of regret and self-loathing had pleaded as he bled. Once the removal had been complete he’d taken the blade to his poorer half’s throat, feeling the warmth of his blood as it washed across his skin.

Three bodies lay in a mass grave slowly filling with tears from the heavens. Two foot wide. Six feet deep. A silence all-encompassing and beautiful awaits.

He strips bare, his nakedness battered by the rains. Lowering himself into the hole he shifts the victims of his rage. Lying down beside them he closes his eyes and waits. The water swells up over his chest, tickling as it fills his ears, and before he can take another breath he slips beneath the surface.

Silence. So endless and beautiful. A man and a murderer floating alongside the dead. How lovely it would be to die here. To hold himself down until his world went blank. How wonderful his demise would be, surrounded by those who spent a lifetime trying to destroy him. But alas, he cannot die today; he cannot give up so easily. He has fought too hard, spilled too much blood to simply drown alongside his regrets.

He surfaces with a gasp, stands in a waist deep pool of muddied waters, and pulls himself from the grave. The dead has risen on this stormy night. A man has been reborn while the demons of his past have been laid to rest. He takes up his shovel and fills in the hole. With every clump of rain soaked earth he feels his strength return. No longer do his shoulders ache; no longer does his spine feel broken. No longer do his blisters throb. No longer will he feel alone.

%d bloggers like this: