If a week before

you are to wed, your bethrothed

catches ebola...

If the day of your

nuptials, your wife is burned and

badly disfigured...

If the month after

you marry, your spouse falls and

ends up wheelchair bound...

If a year after

you take your husband's name, you

learn he's schizophrenic...

If your seventeenth

anniversary marks your

nineteenth cancer treatment...

Will you stay or go?

That is all you need to know

of death till us do part.

Keep it moving.

Eyes focused on not-yet-tomorrow

Lips pierced in anticipation

Headstrong when you’re at your lowest

Take on the day.

A forward-reaching smile

Illuminates their memories.

Admiration fuels

Ink scratching the to-do list.

Step it up.

Sneakers with holes

Tell a sad, tired story

That they don’t need to hear.

Let the tied-tight laces

Do the talking.

Keep it moving.

Conquer doubts.

Steal hearts and breath

For this insignificant moment

In a universe that swallows us whole.

ask me to list

each fear of mine

and i’d be talking

for an epoch

but most of all

it’s fear of change

haunting my head

stretching my soul

if only i could

tug on time

and cling to now

a moment longer

There was a couple who lived on the outskirts of town. They were homebodies, said the whispers that rolled around. No one had seen them together in more than two years.

The man was recognizable, that much was known. He was lean and lithe, hair cropped short. He worked the garden more often than not, but they only grew roses, which made the neighbors feel off.

“Stay away from them, they’re different from us.” Whispered the baker, “We don’t know what kind of people could they be.”

The baker’s daughter, a sprite of a girl, thought to herself on the matter of the gardener, and quietly decreed. “No one has asked, how would we know? Oh! I’ll bring them a loaf and ask of his partner!”

So she did just that, skipping up the hill. Knocked on the door, fresh bread wrapped in linen. The lithe man answered, his eyes pale blue. He fixed his glasses that had been knocked askew. Invited her in after he got over his surprise, and she entered, her questions a storm.

Inside was small, homey and warm. Pots hung from hooks on the ceiling, the walls had plants overgrown. A desk sat in the corner just off the kitchen side, laden with scattered papers, inks, and dyes. The only odd thing, and sure it was strange, was a small glass case with a rose in its cage.

“Please, have a seat.” He said with a motion towards the table.

The girl sat with a look of appraisal, setting her bread confidently aside. She jumped right into it, without preamble or chide.

“Sir, I have questions for you.” She said, crossing her arms.

He sat across from her, a laugh in his eyes. “As payment for the bread?”

“If you please,” She said, careful of her manners. “Where is your wife? Is she still in bed?”

The man blinked, surprised by her candor. He sat back and said plainly, “I have no wife, though I suppose rumors are just news in your small town life.”

“No wife? Then who do you live with?” She looked at the second chair, and pairs of shoes set by the door. If there was no other, then what were they for?

The man shrugged, glancing to the rose. “I live with my dear friend, the Hunter. He is out today. He walks the forest grounds. I stay home and tend to the garden while he makes his rounds.”

“Sir I don’t understand. Why live with a friend, and not a lover?” The girl asked, repeating a question she’d heard her father ask before.

The man shrugged; his gaze flicked to the door. “You tell me, oh wise little girl. You seem too young for love to discover.”

“...Okay fine, I know nothing of lovers.” The girl admitted, fidgeting with her dress. “I was just curious, I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

The man relaxed, a twinkle in his eye. “I have no doubt you meant your best, but perhaps more questions merit another loaf of bread.”

The girl nodded sagely, though she held up a finger. “One more question, please, and I promise I won’t linger.”

The man sighed and gave an assenting nod. The girl smiled, and pointed to the garden beyond.

“Why do you only grow roses?” She asked in a titter.

Oh the smile that lifted his cheeks was only slightly bitter.

“That is my curse, and the reason I live here.” He said. “You see, a sickness took my home, years ago. I still feel it, and sometimes it grows. Through the years I had highs and lows. Then, one day an old woman told me to tend to this rose, so that I might keep this sickness at bay. I suppose I grew fond of them, in a way.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” The little girl said. She hadn’t thought of the man being the one sick in bed. “You’re cursed still, and by who?”

“Ah, that was your last question.” The man said, his voice absent of bite. “You’ve had your fun. You must leave me to my plight. Now go on, little one.”

“Oh no, I can’t do that! We must set it right!” The girl cried.

The man frowned, his blue eyes starting to shimmer. Then there came a knock, and a hearty call of, “Dinner!”

Another man stepped into the room, laden with furs and bloody bags. He stopped short, his smile thinner. The girl just stared. Handsome as he was tall, the Hunter’s presence seemed to boom. He had marvelous hair, and his smile absorbed the leftover gloom.

“Ah, you spoke of your curse.” The Hunter said with a note of banter.

“It’s not my fault she made me blather!” The lithe man replied, crossing his arms.

“I can’t imagine you speaking more than one sentence at a time, you poor cursed beast.” The Hunter laughed, throat rumbling with bass. “Be thankful you are not deceased!”

The girl watched them, back and forth they chimed. Playing off the other as quick as a rhyme. She tilted her head, her confusion shown. “Wait, so is there a curse or no?”

The Hunter then smiled true, crows feet at his temples. “Yes dear one, but let me explain to you. My friend was cursed, this is true - though it has evolved into a riddle. He used to turn into a beast at night, filled with thirst. Now he just sits here, bemoaning his curse. As the hunter of my village, I was tasked to blood him new. But then we met, and I noticed his eyes were blue. I asked him a question, expecting nothing but the worst - and to my surprise, he burst into light, human through and through.”

“I vowed to keep an eye on him, should he ever change.” The Hunter grinned at his friend.

Blue eyes rolled, a voice with patience wearing thin. “It’s been ten years, how strange.”

“What did you ask to break the curse?” The girl asked in wonder.

The men exchanged a glance.

“That is a tale for another.” Said the Hunter.

The lithe man, (Beast, she called him) had a smile like mystery. “Perhaps a loaf of bread will earn you this history.”

Laughter filled the walls of their house, and the little girl finished her tea. She rose, bid her farewells, and let the men be. When her father asked where she had been, she grinned and had this to say:

“The gardener is indeed odd and strange, but the Hunter keeps him in line. He is a Beast, but prefers to eat bread, rather than human lives.”

Little Bo Peep

has slaughtered her sheep

and doesn't know where to hide them

so she drank all their blood

and spun all their wool

and skipped to market to buy more

You eat blueberries on the strip of balcony they listed as a “terrace” and watch the cars pulse through the railings. Car--railing--car--railing. You are entranced by cars, but I worry that you think they are alive. You pet the bumper of each car affectionately when we move down neat parking lot rows. You tuck your plastic miniatures beneath blankets and murmur “shh, shh, shh” to them before bed. I worry that this means you are antisocial, or that he has broken your sense of reality, of affection, but the social workers tell me that I am ‘projecting’. This is the thing that mothers do when they are fearful of cars--of gravel beneath tires, the rhythmic and ponderous crunch before the door opens, and shuts, and the footsteps begin.

You get blueberries stuck in your tiny baby teeth; a swath of blue skin covers one and you are a pirate. I grin at your pirate tooth until it is a drug addict tooth, a rotting body tooth, and I duck behind you to slide my index finger into your mouth.

“I’m just getting it off,” I say, but you’re already crying. I lift you in my arms, and am amazed at your tiny hands clenched in my sweater, your chubby legs warm and strong against my waist, all instinct, like a clinging primate. I marvel at myself; the cause and the comfort. “You had blueberry stuck in your teeth,” I say into your hair and inhale, deep, the sour-sweet smell of your scalp. ‘They could lead me blindfolded down a line of kids and I could sniff your hair, and I would know it was you,’ my mother used to tell me, and it drives me to memorize you now.

I ask the social workers if you’ll remember him, how much, how long, and they say you won’t, not at all, but there’s always projection. I should be careful not to project. And when I ask them whether he’ll stay in, whether they’ll let him out, and when, the social workers smile with their big, big grown up teeth.

“It’s just blueberry skin,” I say, very softly, to your hair, but you hear a fire truck scream by and you use me as a fulcrum to crane your entire body toward the sound. Close, and close, and CLOSE and away, away, away it goes--shh, shh, shh. You love cars. I once watched the lights of a police car flicker red, and blue, and red, and blue and it made me think of you.

Lie before

tremoring hues.

Stroll...

stroll gorging grained

sands.

Frolic...

frolic among

scolding trident

rays!

Spar...

spar along

crumbling steps-

and don’t

forget...

never forget

of the

blood spilled!

Scream and shout,

sing that Starling

ache!

Please...

please my

deception away.

Dreams spark...

Nightmares sparkle.

Now they’ve

won...

now they’ve

w-

******

“He leaned into whisper some of his unmentionable things in her ear.

She chuckled softly, pressed a finger to his lips and purred, “shhhhh, no talking - let us be as mirrors.”

******

Katoptronophilia and the Philosopher’s Stone

He leaned into her, whispering,

His most unmentionable things.

Gently teasing her ears, softly

She chuckled, yielding.

Pressed a finger to his lips,

Let there be no talk.

Let us be as mirrors.

Our flesh a map to explore.

Use the heavens for senses,

We'll navigate the stars .

He feared there'd be reflections,

Of shadows yet to be.

She knew fears were but shadows,

Waiting to be freed.

He smelled of earth and sunshine,

Sage, on a bright and clear day.

Her skin was bathed in ocean salt,

Lotus blossoms, but only through the dark.

Her fingers danced like butterflies,

His skin was her cocoon.

His kisses were as bee stings,

Her flesh suited his old wounds.

His fingers traipsed as spider legs,

Drawing out his passion.

Her kisses were his elixir,

Plump and filled, an esoteric knowledge.

Their bodies were of alchemy,

A ripened, philosopher’s stone.

With every bite of pomegranate,

Another seed was sown.

He pressed a finger to her mouth,

Their bodies violently quaked.

Her silence was his avalanche,

His spellbound ways her path.

There's a certain liberty in shadows,

When eyes lock, and echo past.

~ N.E. Philomèle ©2020

It was an accident. I never meant to hurt anybody. However, people took my words personally as a vicious attack against them. When I started out writing this story, it’s purpose was simply to gain closure on an intense romantic relationship for my past so that I could move on. The story took on an unintended spin as I kept writing. Part of the reason I was drawn to this attraction had to do with the actions and reactions of those around me at the time. I ended up portraying in side plots things that were going on with my friends and family. I realize now that I should have disguised the characters better than I did, altered events from their reality. What I had was actually a good first draft that should have been reworked several times. My editor thought what I had was good, however, and she encouraged me to publish. When I did, I did not count on all Hell braking loose. One person, never a friend, attacked me right away with a viscious one star review that was more of an attack on me than my writing. Another person simply unfriended me, cut of all contact without reaching out at all. Still another sent me an email about how hurt she was by my selfishness. It was never my intention to evoke these reactions. After a few more attacks from the one star reviewer and a threatening message from the sister of one of the “characters,” I decided it was in everyone’s best interest that I unpublish. It was never my intention to cause the hurt that I did. I’m sorry and if I could turn back time, I would think twice before hitting that publish button.