Their eyes frowned upon her as she glanced at them from the translucent box. Life lines and oiled skin from the nakedness of her palms embossed glass walls. Her warm breath moisturized the inside of it like a bathhouse as she stayed, cradled by her own arms, peering at the onlookers who scowled and giggled at her from the streets.

“What a monster.” A lady with dark red hair and polished burgundy lips clutched her cream, leather purse and shuffled away in a flurry.

“Please, I’m not a monster!” The girl cried out, but no one flinched, peeked nor reacted. Hundreds of bodies zipped past her box like little rats in the street.

Men pulled their pants down, cracking their zippers to match their diabolical smiles as their cheeks rushed with rouge. Their tongues were tainted with the sin of serpents and leaked saliva that fell like melted acrylic. Embryo painted the outside of the girl’s glass cage like a cast away canvas that begged to be burned. The girl, fully clothed and covered, fastened her arms tighter around her knees with the horsepower of a newborn, vampiric spawn.

“Whore!” A coffee barricaded by a paper cup splattered all over the girl’s translucent box as it fell onto the sooted cement. A lady in a pink, pastel penciled skirt switched her hips off into the distance with a smirk on her face.

The girl’s box began to fill with tears; one inches, now two. People started to crowd around the girl, laughing, mocking, rubbing themselves at the crotch and some even banged on the glass in mockery. Their eyes absorbed her, yet their mouths rejected her all in a moment. Her cries were swallowed by the enclosed cube, crystalizing at the tear duct and rationalized by magic and worry.

People yelled out in the crowd, ladies smeared their lips with red maquillage, men swung naked in the afternoon sun like it was a common thing. Both sexes yelled obscenities and spat on the other side of the glass, broken spittle like gnats on a car windshield.

The girl dug into the back of her hand, splitting her skin like a pick axe through gray onyx. Baby dribbles of some of the purest blood you’ve ever seen seeping through the peach fuzz on the back of her hand and down her wrist. Her oiled palms now slicked with merlot red, like the ladies lips in the street. The girl brushed her lips with the juice of her life and smeared it on her mouth; cherry beak and heartache touches. Blood dripped inside the puddle of her tears at the bottom of the box, diluting magic and rationalization; four inches high now. Her toes started to look like sweaty dried raisins that had been laying on the sidewalk underneath of a Mississippi sun. Men and women banged at her on the glass like a caged animal. The girl flung her fists, blood flinging and flying like a thunderstorm made for bloodsuckers. She tore down her pants, then her button down blouse and exposed her breasts while creating the most merciless splashes a nightmare has ever seen. Her fists balled and bred white knuckles. She banged on the glass like an wild ape begging for violence. Sinister and sound proof living inside of a glass casket. Horrors and howls wasted under a blistering sun.

Her inches of tears suddenly spilled out of the box like the yolk of an egg that had been pierced with a fork. A side door casually opened by the hand of a man she had never seen.

“Sir, please shut it!” She panicked, “They’ll hurt me!” The girl backed into the corner of the small, glass cube; hands shaking like an autumn leaf falling from a tree.

“Come out of the box.” He stood calm, collected and almost stoic with his hand on the door, staring at her closely.

Slowly, the girl put a foot in front of the other, “H-how did you open it?”

“Like this.” He twisted the knob, shut the door and opened it again. He cracked a smile as easy as you could crack a can of coke.

“But…I didn’t know it was there.” She twiddled her index fingers and looked around at the people still watching her intently.

“Well, what were you focused on?” The man smiled gently, warm, soft.

"Huh?"

"What. Were...You focused on?" He remained calm and polite.

The girl stepped out of the box. Watered down roses fell from her lips like the death of womanhood under a sky birthed by God and the Devil, together. Her gold plated chest held breasts that lightly flickered with twinkle and terror encrusted desires. Blood still dripped from her wrist to the her elbow, her pruned feet turning to little diamond toes made of sugar and honey. As she made her way out of the box, the men and the women stopped and stared. Some looked away out of shame, others walked off out of pure boredom.

“Am I…Am I like them now?” The girl looked up at the man with the broken eyes and the straw beard, her lips still slicked with her own blood.

“You will never be them and they will never be you. Fear is what we see, or don’t see, in ourselves and condemn the next for being the captor of it. See how their anger turns to boredom? Their jealousies turn to fear and their lust turns to shame? And your reactions fed them all like barbarians out for blood.” The man stroked the girl’s hair softly, kind and loving like a gentle Father.

“But t-the door. Why didn’t anyone open it?” The girl looked up at the man, bloodlust lips on an innocent face.

“My dear girl, they never wanted you to see that door. Because that is the biggest power of all.”

I watched him sleep. His eyes fluttered behind his lids like moth wings battling a fluorescent light. His hands were clasped together in prayer on the top of his midsection like his body was ready to be buried under 6 feet of damp soil. This life of his; like death concealed by brawn, wrapped in tissued sweet breads, baked around my skin for miles. His bracelets held beads shadowed by blackened eyes of fallen demons and gold link pendants of crosses and Jesus praying positioned on the nape of his neck. He dreamt only in colors of ashen lava that destroyed the life around it, unconscious of his conscience.

He slept and he dreamt, he fluttered in peace while I watched the world die around him. Vines strangled the hummingbirds and pink tulip petals were covered in holes as the acid rain fell from the sky. I pressed my mouth on his and sucked slow. The color of poison and venomous shrieks filled my lungs like smoke.

Lambs died slow inside of me with the same monotony as molasses. Death by fire would’ve been quick, but those serrated blades that decorated my bloodshed linens seemed to speak to me like the whispers under his tongue; and I’d kill a thousand more just to hear them. The tornados inside of my heart whipped cities to the ground and I swallowed the molten lava that buried them. A blue ball of wildfire simmered in the pit of my stomach, threatening the black eyed demons that played on his wrist. I could kill them all with one snatch of the cross he bears around his neck, but I have a different cross to bear. Because I’d be ravished by a thousand storms before I let him stop breathing. Besides, the hummingbirds are flying again.

My blood ran as cold as the iridescent nightfall. Naked as a newborn, I pranced around my cottage, twirling my hair and lighting candles that smelled of bubblegum and autumn. Silver rested on my décolleté with sapphire pendants imprinting upon my perfectly polished skin. My feet danced to soul-stirring notes of music that could bewitch the most venomous cobra kings. Pale plated mirrors embellished every wall in that house, reflecting my own glamour back to me. My lips were decorated by the color of fury and my eyelids twinkled with the scales of a pearly skinned fish.


I sailed from the dining room to my living room and divided the black curtains into two that were held up by gold plated rods. My hands gripped the window lock and I forced it open to let in the cool, evening air. My breasts exposed, fully naked and alone. My only company; sapphire charms and music that could bring sea creatures to drown.


*clink clink clink*


I ducked under the windowsill and peered out of its screen. A shadow of a man off at a short distance, carrying a boatload in his arms of something that I couldn’t quite see. The closer he got, the louder it became.


*clink, clink, clink*


He’s closer now.


Under the vast night sky, the moon rewarded his scruffy beard with a beautiful glow. His skin was like melted milk chocolate, covered in peanut butter and kissed by the sun. His cloak covered his half naked body, grunting with every step as he traveled up the moonlit cobblestone walkway. Whatever he was holding was loud and large, clinking together repeatedly, like wine glasses inside of the darkest watering hole full of drunks.


*clink clink clink*


He was almost to my front porch; his eyes weary and swollen, as if he had been crying for years. His physique strong, yet somehow feeble like a rail. Skin like milk and soil that could bed a thousand black roses. He had wavy hair that obeyed the movement of his steps, elongated fingers held by fragile bones, yet beautiful all the same. My eyes followed him like he was prey that I didn’t want to eat.


He tumbled on my doorstep, jewels fell from his arms, gold and silver painting my porch. Sterling made from the edge of the world glistened like wet candy. Diamond necklaces reflected like the same mirrors inside of my house.  Rubies spun like dradles that embodied the soul of my lips and manifested as the color of violence. My eyes lit up from what this man had brought me. Everything I have ever wanted; here.  Right here. Like gifts from the Universe.


But there he lied. Almost unconscious, silent tears falling from his face and into my cobblestone walkway, like little rivers of his past waiting to evaporate. His eyes were like jewels that God hand crafted himself. A beard with the same quality of an Egyptian cotton pillow and a heart that reflected the emotions in his face. He said nothing.  He looked up at me, unable to lift his arms or elbows. He just looked at me, looked at me from behind these jewels that he could easily outshine without the help of starlight.


My eyes began to water, for the first time in years. Still naked, without a second thought or hesitation, I ran from the window and swung open the wooden front door.  My breasts were bare and exposed under the midnight air. I ran past the jewels and cupped his drooping head inside of my palms. I threw his arm over my shoulder, as we walked over the treasures from the edge of the world. I could feel rubies and silver crumbling beneath my feet and gold chains slithering into the dirt like dying snakes. I took him inside of my home and my mirrors fell to the ground,  my lips turned to the color of my flesh and the music turned to the sound of his beating heart.

Her fingers crossed like wires through a different dimension, fumbling through tarnished brass keys with an internal clock that ticked like a pet peeve. Her breath was drunk with panic. Clammy skin on her cheeks were framed by golden brown hair that dangled from her flaking scalp like thousands of dead vines grown from the corpse of human flesh. The brass keys jangled together between her anorexic fingers, louder than her whispers could ever be.


“Please, please.” The keys dropped on the metal floor as she scurried to pick them back up, a tear dissolved into the peach fuzz on her cheek like many before that one. “Please,” she whispered again.


The hole inside of her chest could home a thousand roaches. Breast plate caved in and forced to the side, exposing a slowly beating heart on what seemed like its last lifeline. The girl’s legs trembled. Her toes tried to grip the chilled floor as she picked a key from the dangling chain. She shifted closer to the mirror on the peeling wallpaper decorated by burnt flowers and pale ladybugs. Her milky skin like a frosted window, golden vines sticking to the tears on her face, she got close enough to be able to see the keyhole inside of her heart through her reflection. Her hand trembled like a leaf in October as she stuck another key in the hole of her heart like the nine keys before it. She twisted and turned, blood drained from her heart, recycling itself inside her caved chest and back into her body to be utilized again. She let out a blood curdling wail, the key clicking in the flesh of her heart. A rugged voice behind her, spoke softly in a questionable tone.


“Try this one.” The girl turned around frantically and dropped the key to the floor.  A boy. A boy her age, maybe a little older. His chest held a million stitches with purple veins running through his breasts like poisoned rivers in a desolate place.


He approached the girl without a twitch, hand steady holding the key to what felt like the desperation for freedom. He embraced her closely, kissed her with the strength of a thousand lies and twisted the key with barely an effort into her forsaken heart. She dropped to the floor like a bag of bricks. The boy knelt down and watched her chest secure shut on its very own, thousands of little stitches creating themselves like cells regenerating life. He kissed the girl’s forehead and smiled.


“Silly girl, you’ve been looking in the wrong place.”

I could use his fangs as a mirror if I wanted to. His existence was one of the strangest sights; like a flowerbed of bleeding stars that had fallen from the moon’s mercy into the ground with brains like cracked tombstones. He likes it there. The night fondles him in his sleep and spits in his mouth when he snores too loud. When he wakes up, there is lust on his hands and warped words are whispered from his tongue as his fingers speak the most colorful language of all.  Languages many hear, but know not to speak. Languages many know not to speak, but wish they had the gall to. The Devil waits outside of his door in the early morning and God is the prisoner of his heart. Confrontation of anything is avoided like a three headed serpent that speaks languages only all four of them know. My screams flow like rivers inside the creases of his palms and my fears transform into his biggest fantasy when the flowerbeds need tending. And when he smiles, I see myself in his fangs, my reflection a little smaller each time.

The inner child of my past has disembodied herself from me. She's likely wandered somewhere, aimlessly, with disheveled hair and a stained white, cotton shirt. A mouth watered by wonder and pupils barricaded by four rings of wildfire and melancholic tales of Atlantis. Nail beds like the underground of Hades bedroom and knees like skinned softballs with one bandaid hanging on for dear life. And all the while, I know she is terrified without me.  She’s probably nervous, running in the woods like a fairy born inside of a ghostland, trinkets of gold bells dangling from her hair and glacial like fog biting at her feet. I’ve traveled miles to find her and here she is; dancing in circles with wolves and scratching beastly creatures behind their ears like they’re modern day golden retrievers. The coyotes have fallen asleep at her feet and knowledge bearing owls hoot into her ear as their feet clamp around her delicate shoulders.  And as I hide behind this tree, watching her grace, her fearlessness and the courage that bleeds from every pore embedded inside of her sewn, glittered skin…I realized, it was I, that needed her.

Life comes in many forms.  Brown, thick and packed like sardines surround my body like the Devil in disguise. Soiled veins under pressure like a tourniquet wrapped around their throbbing throats, beating them into submission under a cloaked holographic skyline. My struggle; similar to a rose breaking beneath concrete, begging to see life, even through a barbaric lens. Where is there to go but up? Dust will settle around me like ash taking its rest after a city that had been raped by fire. Worms will crawl through my torso, starved for experience and yet, fed by me. My only choice is up. I broke through the soil, my branches hitting the body of a naked corpse with gouged eyes and larva screaming through the dead girl’s torso for their pointless lives. I’ve hit a wall, but I can break glass ceilings. My branches licked through her chest like the fear of God had a child and birthed It through her heart. My growth has altered, but I do not falter. The oak from my arms shattered every bone in the woman’s body, growing around her like the captor of her soul. My arms contorted, my leaves disfigured and wanting, but grown nonetheless. I have grown nonetheless.

He touched the back of her hand. Her pretty palms pressed against a jagged rock. Ocean waves, waiving their right to be still by allowing themselves to be manipulated by the spawn of wind and gravity. She never looked at him, only stared; not even into the ocean.  She was far past that.

“Are you scared?” He asked the average looking girl with the exceptional eyes. A wave hit the rock she sat on, but she didn’t flinch. A calm breeze through her hair, unmoved by the forces of Mother Nature.

“Scared of what?”

He glanced at the ocean nervously then back at the girl again. His palm still covering the back of her knuckles as if he was protecting something he knew nothing of.

“The ocean.” The boy whispered.

“Why would I be scared of the ocean?” Now she faced the boy, wet lips and dry hair flirting with her cheekbones and pale-ish blue skin. The white waves of the ocean had nothing on her own that danced on the top of her head. The boy let go of the back of her hand, almost in resentment.

“Yeah, right! You would never jump in!  You’re scared!”

The girl turned her face, confronting the ocean with her eyes and closed them. Her skin turned translucent like a bottom feeder fish and her bones cracked through her legs like they were praying to the ocean air. Fish like fangs broke through her jaw, creating a face like a painting from Picasso. Her hair melted into her skin like veins as she slowly turned to the horrified boy.

“Sometimes we're scared of what we are,” as she slipped into the ocean and allowed the waves to swallow her whole.

​