I burnt myself yesterday, an accident of sorts. Trying to keep up with the others, the golden flame enticed my hand.
I put it out, killed it in all its beauty. My reckless fingers. My filthy hands.
The rosy waves, they softly lapped my fingers. The flame, its wings fluttered and engulfed. And I couldn't feel it.
No pain inflicted to worry the birds, or stir animals that might feed on me. No cry or scream of anguish. It was all quite brief, quite sudden.
I think of myself as a moth. Perhaps we are both moths and we hatched from wardrobes too close to one another.
Two lifetimes spent bumping into bright lights in shadowed rooms. Lifetimes pressed hard against windows that trap and goad with the beauty they offer. And we’d fly so fast sometimes, almost blind.
Wings crushed and aflame, we met. Singed, flesh melting, we fell falling, spiralling. Downwards, ever aching, towards cooling waters, breaking.
One missed the pool below, burned for hours, survived.
The other broke the meniscus, soon cooled and sadly drowned.
And so I write, in fingers black with soot, on an ashen paper cup, ‘here lies the silken body of a once proud moth’.
7 comments:
Was it Porphyria's Lover you read? If so, this is a brilliant originalising (for want of a better term). The moth-metaphor totally transmutes the gruesome-ness of the murder and leaves me feeling only pity.
Thanks once again for the compliments. I did freelance for a while, but that was another century, another city. I do hope to do it again, if the opportunity arises.
Yes, that's the one Sucharita. Porphyria's Lover was definitely an inspiration.
hehe yeah, my friend Walt doesnt tend to think things through very much.....
hehe yeah i like the old school horror movies, but not too old school, meaning ones like scream.
though ive already gone through this "i-wanna-see-carnage-when-i-go-to-the-movies" phase so my judgement on Prom Night was more about the fact that there are so many horror movies like that around that im so used to it and its just not scary anymore...
well thanks for the comments,
Lots of Love,
Age xoxoxoxxoxoxoxo
This is so sad but also really lovely. Some prose is so empty and feels so meaningless but this piece made me feel quite emotional. Another beautiful piece of writing.
This is really beautiful! The way you looked at the entire process was amazing...:-)
Hmmmm...unfortunately, I read the comments before mine and got assisted understanding...this story is a poem. I think I'll be lying in bed wondering about its meaning and one day get it. Thought-provoking.
yes, you are right, it is different, but it is dark-beautiful and very intensive. a great beginning too, right in the middle of an ambiguity which will never be cleared up, on the contrary, deepend: who is this mysterious I, who are the others, and then "we"... maybe it could be read as a kind of ars poetica, the voice belongs to the poet struggling with his art...
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