i found my trouble at the end of the bottle. it was just looking up at me, laughing. you are intrinsically bad, little girl. axiomatic said an old writer once.
axiomatically inherently intrinsically bad.
yes.
i threw the bottle with a flick of my wrist and enjoyed the sound the glass breaking on the wet asphalt below my window. grabbed the other that was still full and waiting for me, a little present of possibility. sweet tasting oblivion. the liquid had a way of burning that made me think of antiseptic.
the thoughts overcrowded and jumbled, the codex of the rapture, the epistle of the sorrowful.
gospels they all were. the gospel according to the forgotten.
i emptied the second bottle out of spite in just a few minutes and found myself once again staring back at the distorted reflection at the bottom of the hollow glass. this time, without blinking, i smashed it against the wall and felt around for the edges.
i would cut you out of me in order to no longer to wear this victim’s skin. and as i began to raise the jagged point towards my face, the void came up in a wave and swallowed me away.
i slept the sleep of self-inflicted martyrs, heavy and empty and devoid of all comfort.
what woke me was the sound of the violin playing softly and as i blinked sleep away slowly, i realized that it had all been somehow undone. the years of being tossed to one jackal after another, the living fear and then the hatred and disgust, the breathing husk of a girl that was my existence.
the violin. the song weaved itself to me, a cradle. and on the dresser, as i looked for the source, i found that it was coming from a music box. i stepped gently out of bed, anxious that a heavier footstep might crack this reality and have it all fall around me unexpectedly.
wooden, smelling of cedar, it was smooth, deeply etched with a vine pattern and nothing else. it was empty and unlike most music boxes, it did not hold a dancing figurine. it simply played for the dancer in my mind, the figure i had once dreamt to be.
delicate but strong, like the violin strings that weaved together the melody that held me in a sway of subtle ecstasy.
with a smile, i picked it up and for a moment, felt an immense sense of relief, gratitude, and the purest of love flow through me. and once again, without the blink of an eye, i raised it over my head and smashed that sweet serenading object. with a twang in objection, the song wound down, now only a sickened parody of its former perfection. the world wavered in the lightest of quicksilver and i was back where i belonged. back to where truth is always ugly but it will always let you know where you stand.
the splintered wood was evidence that it had been real. but who the fuck said i needed rescuing?
-j. blackbird
Amen.
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