“Crash into me, so I can see my heart bleed”
—Wolves London
Sepulcher
11.13.23
11:37 p.m.
I am but a shell of a thing
A relic of a life’s fortune spent
A prisoner to volition
And a testament to the nail biting, skin crawling nuance of algorithmic programming
To code.
I am but a monument
A hardened stone atonement
Crafted by those long gone.
A physical manifestation of a hard earned days work
Spread thin for a life long haul
A mountain I will be forever forced to climb
Like Mercer before me
Like Atlas before him.
I am but a tomb
A place to house the dead
A place to mourn my child-like self
Before each version of Him
Before each perversion of when
A statement to be made twice, thrice, and ten times over again
A Mockery of self without the diatribe of them.
Im am but a riddler’s game
Stuck in my own faulty paradigm
Lost out at sea and dried out on land
Both forlorn and somewhat amused
Amassing the space to fill a void
Of which forever will cave in.
I am but a shell of a thing
Habituated and lifeless inside
A monument
A testament
A game played upon myself
I am but a shell of a thing.
—Wolves London
A Soft Life
*
A Soft Life *
07.27.23
I want to live a soft life.
I want to wear ribbons in my hair; to feel the warm sun on my face and cool breeze on my skin. I want to carry a basket of roses without spreading the petals too thin; to arrange them in the most romantic of ways. I want to breathe easy; to believe in something more spectacular than Shakespeare plays. I want believe in magic and watch the sun go dim; to see the stars sparkle like the universe will never end.
Maybe had I been born a Charlotte, a Daphne, or an Eloise. Maybe had I been born of love and not sin; had my genetics come from parents who listened to theirs and those before them. Maybe had I listened to mine and not all of them. Maybe had I known better about the birds and the bees, maybe my mother could have told me; maybe id be dancing in a field somewhere to a wedding melody. Maybe the issue was my father, but likelier it was me.
Sometimes I wish I stayed inside my mother. Sometimes I wish I never had a single lover. A better brother. A better song to sing than a cover. A better meal than someone else’s supper. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to be tougher. Sometimes I wish I never had to watch the end of summer.
I want to live a soft life.
I want to wear ribbons in my hair; to feel the warm sun on my face and cool breeze on my skin. I want to carry a basket of roses without spreading the petals too thin; to arrange them in the most romantic of ways. I want to breathe easy; to believe in something more spectacular than Shakespeare plays. I want believe in magic and watch the sun go dim; to see the stars sparkle like the universe will never end.
—Wolves London
Tiny Plastic Parts
12.21.21 12:12 pm
It started with lip injections.
Lip filler, on average, $600 per syringe.
Average fill: one syringe.
Obsessive fill: two.
For five years I injected different brands of hyaluronic acid into an incredibly sensitive area of the face in an attempt to give my mouth the shape society has deemed “beautiful.”
Lip filler, five years, approximately three times a year
Fifteen injections
At an average of $600 per injection
Lip filler= $9,000
What came next: Nasolabial fold filler
Which I obsessed over and neurotically filled every single month—due largely in part to an overly fast metabolism I have been ‘blessed’ or ‘cursed’ with depending on your definition of each.
Hyaluranic acid of varying brands injected into my face for fear that ANY line would make me appear “old”
A term no woman in the Western world wants to be categorized as.
Nasolabial fold filler, on average, $500 per syringe.
Nasolabial fold filler, on average, every month, for five years
12 x 5= 60 syringes
60 syringes over 5 years at the cost of $500 a syringe
Nasolabial fold filler= $30,000
Then came botox.
That beautiful invention by which all the lines in the forehead are “erased,” and leaves you with the inability to lift your brows at any cost—your life could literally depend on lifting your eyebrows more than 1cm and you wouldn’t be able to do so.
Lines=aging
And we don’t want that.
Botox once, every two to three months, on average, $300 per visit, over five years
20 x $300
Botox= $6,000
But it doesn’t stop there.
Once you start obsessing over every
Single
Tiny
Detail,
It doesn’t stop.
Next came PDO threads—the bane of my actual existence— an over-priced, useless, damaging tool to replicate a facelift with none of the benefits of having actually undergone a facelift.
PDO threads for full face= $2,000
PDO threads for brow lift= $1,000
Full face done once, brow lift done five times= $7,000
When PDO threads did not perform the way in which was suggested (marketed and sold to me by western practices) I started doing procedures that were marketed for face lifting and tightening without undergoing actual surgery.
Radio frequency, that beautiful term every woman has likely heard, sends electromagnetic radio waves to deep penetrating parts of your facial anatomy to lift that unwanted, saggy, skin and allegedly produce collagen.
Radiation.
You get RADIATION.
Beauty is…pain, right?
I suppose also dangerous…
And ludicrous,
but who’s keeping score?
Radio frequency treatments at $300 for six sessions every year
For five years= $9,000
When radio frequency was not delivering the insanely neurotic results I required to eliminate nearly invisible lines, I looked into procedures like Ulthera and Shurink.
Shurink,A Korean tool which uses ultrasound technology similar to Ulthera, sends short pulses through your facial fat and muscles to stimulate and remodel collagen.
Shurink $800 a session
Five sessions over five years= $4,000
At this point, maintenance takes on an entirely new level of commitment
poking and prodding,
tweaking tiny imperfections,
becomes a full-time investment.
Full face filler—cheeks, jawline, temples, etc—started to shape my face into the “perfect” construction
The “heart-shaped” face.
Full face filler on average $5,000
Done three times over two years= $15,000.
Nose filler came next because I was too afraid to get surgery and absolutely hated the shape of my nose.
The “Jew” bump I was ridiculed over both in school and outside of such
The largeness which was remarked upon by casting directors and modeling agencies
HAD TO GO.
$1,000 per session
Nose filler three times over two years= $3,000
And when my plastic surgeon refused to give me a facelift because I was too young—even though I argued for an hour about how “Kylie Jenner had a facelift”—I was forced to listen to his advice and try Morpheus 8, first.
Remember our friend radio frequency?
Morpheus 8 uses radio frequency technology along with micro needling in one powerful tool that hurts more than anything I’ve ever felt in my life.
I’ve never gone into labor, but I’m assuming it’s a walk-in-the-park compared to this.
Ok, that’s an exaggeration.
Nevertheless, it hurts
Badly.
Morpheus 8, on average, $800
Four sessions over two years= $3,200
I quickly learned that not all Morpheus 8 is created equally, and after a really awful session which left my face depleted of natural face fat, I had to start putting Sculptra into the area to build up collagen where it had been lost.
Sculptra, the injections women use to make their a$$ bigger, made of Poly-L-Lactic acid
Is supposed to stimulate the body’s natural production of collagen.
If you haven’t been paying attention, collagen is key, and micro traumas are allegedly what build it.
Beauty IS quite literally pain.
A single vial of Sculptra, which is the tiniest bit of material you’ll ever witness in a vial, on average, $700
Five vials over two years= $3,500
Then came surgery.
Breast Augmentation,
because,
why not?
Even though I already had a more than sufficient breast size, even though EVERYONE told me not to, EVEN THOUGH my doctor thought I might well be insane for doing so, I was convinced that the tiniest difference in size between one breast and the other was enough to warrant my feeling that my chest wasn’t as good as I perceived “good” to be.
Society’s standards
Western society,
And the innumerable amount of young women on sites like Onlyfans showing their well-crafted, “perfect” bodies for less than $20 a view
$8,000 toward the beginning of a “perfect body,” seemed, at the time, like a smart investment.
Yet, on the way to my pre-op, I sat in the back of my Uber crying uncontrollably.
Crying because I realized that nearly $87,000 spent on “perfecting” a version of myself which still wasn’t, and likely never will be, “perfect,” will
NEVER
BE
ENOUGH.
Eighty seven thousand dollars spent on trying to be valuable in a society that doesn’t value a single thing.
Eighty seven thousand dollars spent on trying to be worth something to people who are worthless, themselves.
I cried for a full hour,
riding with a stranger,
because no dollar amount in the world will ever make me “enough,”
And that, I think
Is the real testament to “Beauty is Pain.”
—Wolves London
YUNA
12.15.21
1:26 am
I often think about the nights you and I lie together on those cold leather seats.
Head to head
Arms stretched out,
Fingertips next to each other.
Drunk off poison with our world spinning beneath neon lights.
We would lie in silence,
Feeling the weight of the world.
A place too cold for warm souls like ours.
I could see your tears without looking,
I could feel them in the lines across your arms
And I found solace in the fact you too could see mine.
Worlds spinning
Yet we waited for the moment to take another sip and smile at all of its audacity.
—Wolves London
As You Like It
As You Like It
10.21.21 1:15 pm
Never forget the actor when one is method acting.
It is far too easy to only recognize the character,
And much harder to remember the person behind the mask.
“All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare said
“And all the men and women merely players”
Or was it Goffman and his “Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life?”
Remember to take the hat off at night
Remember to tell the actor the hat is merely a prop to amplify the character’s image.
“Never forget the actor when one is method acting,”
I believe I said.
—Wolves London
Snake Skin
10.14.21 Time Unknown
Suffering the sweet serenity of suffocation
Was not on my list of things to
Succumb to.
Stifling
And sterile.
It had always rubbed me the wrong way
Something I swore to never surrender to.
Segmented
And synthesized.
I refused to allow a thumb to press me in a way
So as to
Shut
Me
Up.
Hiss
Hiss
Tisk
Tisk.
She’ll sleep softly singing songs of synchronicity
Serendipity
Sultry, sexy, shimmering, sunrises and sets.
Hiss
Hiss
Never a Tisk
Tisk.
Sparkle
Slit
Sparkle
Spit.
—Wolves London
The Birth
10.06.21 Unknown Time
Out of the pits of hell
I dragged myself
Hardly alive
Barely breathing.
The aftermath of a heartbreak song
Little pieces of it
My heart
Strewn across an already rubble filled landscape.
Alas the devil had not won
Fore the beast inside my soul had just been born.
—Wolves London
The Violence of Forgetting
03.20.21
This shit is never ending
This shit is ever pending
This shit is unforgiving
This shit is unrelenting
—Wolves London
“So often we are caught in webs,
We forget we are the spider
And not the fly.”
BREATHLESS
BREATHLESS
11.19.20 2:15 pm
I met a man once
He was angry I believed in God.
The one right after
Labored for years to explain how I didn’t believe in God enough.
I met a man once
He told me I painted like it was a hobby.
The one right after
Labored for years to explain all I cared about was the money I made from painting.
I met a man once
He wanted me blonde
Another wanted me brunette.
Short.
Tall.
Slim.
Thicc.
I met a man once
He told me I was too obsessed with looking young.
The one right after
Labored for years in reminding me that I was old.
I met a man once
He told me I was stupid.
The one right after
Labored for years to remind me that I treated everyone as if I was smarter than them.
I met a man once
He wanted me quiet
Another wanted me loud.
Virgin.
Whore.
Martyr.
Saint.
I met a man once
And I thought:
How laughably wicked are the words that escape the mouths of men,
If only they knew God was a woman who had absolutely no intention of saving them.
—Wolves London
Shiloh
11.19.20
4:00 pm
I remember the day Shiloh died
I watched, sitting atop the kitchen counter, gazing out the window.
My father had called the vet knowing the ability to save the horse had passed.
Shiloh had twisted his gut— an absolute awful scene to witness.
Twisting the gut for a horse is, well, a death sentence
It would be absolutely no different for him.
My father hadn’t caught it in time—maybe had he, the story’s ending might have changed
Aside from such, the vet was still an hour away.
My father knew the inevitable—always wise beyond his years and someone I constantly looked up to—yet, he still attempted to do everything in his ability to keep Shiloh alive for as long as possible.
I watched
Painstakingly
Now sitting nearly in the sink.
I watched my father—a large man for the average sized male—struggle to pull Shiloh up from the ground
Shiloh wincing in pain.
My father’s legs trembling from the weight of the horse.
Walk it off.
I could hear him yelling at the horse.
WALK IT OFF!
He tugged and pulled the lead rope
Shiloh’s halter pulling at his forlorn face.
He was the weakest I had ever seen any animal to be.
We had puppies, once, all of which survived parvovirus
This paled in comparison.
His legs shook barely able to keep upright the near ton of weight they rest under.
I could see it in Shiloh’s eyes
He, too, knew he was dying.
When the vet arrived, Shiloh lie in the middle of the arena.
Lifeless.
My father, arms crossed, spoke with this horse doctor for quite some time.
I stayed on the kitchen counter unable to take my eyes off the horse’s body.
It would never move again, even if my father dragged it for decades.
I watched the backhoe burry Shiloh in the same spot the next day
The middle of the arena.
I watched from the kitchen window
Atop the counter
Nearly in the sink.
—Wolves London
Enlightenment
10.20.20 12:00 am
There’s this building to the left of my 31st story balcony which shines a bright geometric light into the city.
Every time I looked out at it, the light was neon purple in color.
It made me feel like I was in one of my favorite animated series
One of Japanese sorts.
The purple light shone-out through all of midtown,
highlighting a city so vibrant already with the same energy.
Today, I walked out and noticed the light was somehow green.
“Aww, they changed it,” I thought.
Relatively saddened that the feeling from before had been lost
I stared at the light trying to find the new energy.
Slowly the light changed from green to turquoise.
Wait...
The light pulsed?
I waited
For twenty minutes, I watched it go through the entire rainbow of colors, finally landing on purple.
How odd it had been that every time I stepped out, 31 floors up, I had ALWAYS seen it as purple, but now, In this moment, I found it had ALWAYS been changing without my knowing.
How profound an insight to see that we may always see something or someone only in a particular light, not only because we were never given the opportunity to see differently, but largely because we didn’t take the time to wait and see if the light ever changed.
—Wolves London
“I was once a whisper, so I could become a roar.”
Genesis
06.10.20 6:00 pm
My skin glittered in the sunlight. Glimmered like the iridescence of fish scales magnified in the water. The air smelled of jasmine and fresh rain, and the plants vibrated colors that could be heard like music. Fawns and bunnies flitted about, while birds chirped and butterflies danced around brightly colored daffodils. These were my favorite moments...staring out into The Garden. It was literal paradise; although, it was all I’d ever known. The Garden was all I had, outside of my husband, and it filled me with great joy knowing it was all I would ever need. I could spend eternity here. I scribbled in my notebook...yeah, eternity, I thought.
I looked out beyond the river. The water looked like diamonds rolling down a hill. It was as if the best known artist painted his greatest masterpiece right in front of me. Suddenly, out of the side of my eye, I noticed a rustling. I could see the grass waver back and forth. It moved quickly, in a way I had never noticed before. I set my notebook down—the drawing of The Tree faced up, its fruit indescribably lustrous—and stood so I could better assess the movement. The ground was cool and soft. My bare feet pressed lightly into the soil, leaving the slightest imprint of my soles. The movement inched closer, and I could feel the ground start to rumble. My heart raced...I didn’t recognize this feeling. It was uncomfortable, frightening, in a way, I suppose, and yet, exhilarating. The movement stopped in front of me, and I could hear a faint hiss.
I nervously stepped forward. The ground seemed, suddenly, less refreshing...dry almost. Peering over the blades of grass I started to make out a creature I had yet to see before in The Garden. Skin that glistened like mine... it sparkled in the sunlight, nearly pink like flesh. Glimmered like the iridescence of fish scales magnified in the water. It moved like the river moved...meandered to and fro. I couldn’t tell where the creature started and stopped. Suddenly a head slipped through the grass and swirled around my foot. It was terrifyingly smooth... quickly its head crept up my leg—the glittering of flesh on flesh merging into one. Mesmerized. I shook my leg, and let out a sound I had never made before—almost like the long whinny of a horse. “Baby...” It whispered to me. It’s tongue spit out rapidly...it too was terrifyingly smooth and meandered like the river to and fro. “Baaaaaby...”
I knelt down, my knees now touching the once cool soil. It crusted to my skin. I felt horribly uncomfortable. “Baby,” the creature hissed... its face now meeting mine. “What are you, creature?” I questioned, staring directly at him. The slits of his eyes deepened into the roundness of mine. “Does that matter? Quite honestly, I am here to ask you a far more pressing question.” Its tongue continued to move back and forth. I took my head from its mesmerizing stare and tried to look beyond the trees. Where was my husband? “Your skin, dear maiden, it glimmers like mine. It shimmers in the sun, but I am left to wonder why it does not eat from The Tree the way I do?” The Tree was forbidden to eat from. It’s fruit more beautiful than all other fruits in the garden but HE had told my husband and me to never eat from it. Many times I had watched The Tree glimmer and wondered why it was different than the rest, but I knew The Garden was plentiful, and it seemed so unnecessary to go against His word. “Did he really say ‘you must not eat from any tree in The Garden,’ my dear goddess?” Its questions irritated me. I looked back at my notebook. “Look, creature...no, SERPENT, He told me we could eat from any tree but not The Tree in the middle of The Garden. Even so much as touching its magically enchanting leaves would strike me dead.” “Baby...” the serpent hissed again, “you certainly will NOT die. I have eaten from The Tree, and it is HE who knows that when you eat its resounding fruit, your eyes will be opened just as HIS are, and you will know good and evil.” I stared directly into the serpent’s eyes. Although starkly different from my own, they seemed, in way, so honest. I looked up, again, wondering where my husband might be.
I twisted my hair through my fingers. It was long and flowed like the serpent, meandering to and fro. I twisted and twisted...my thoughts following the movements, raveling and unraveling over and over again. “ I will not die?” I asked the serpent. “You most certainly will not...quite the opposite, really.” It replied coyly. “And this fruit, you say, it will allow me to see like HIM...to see like you?” The serpent slid up my leg again...moving its way to my waist. “You will see the truth, my queen.” I twisted another strand...my hair was beginning to look like individual serpents growing from my head. “But what of Adam, my husband, should I not ask him first?” I inquired. “Why, goddess...you are capable of your own decisions, are you not? And you see, correctly so, you and I, we share the same skin, we are the same...why, baby, why would I mislead you?” The serpent was right: I should make my own decisions, and the skin of the serpent was like the skin on my own body. I stopped twisting, and began walking to the center of The Garden. I stared up into The Tree. I had never stood this close to it before. I touched it’s trunk; it was golden in color and felt like velvet—it was warm and cool, somehow, at the same time. The serpent wrapped around the base, slithering its way up to the center. “Not dead, yet, right, goddess?” Indeed, the serpent had not lied, yet. I was still alive. I looked back toward my notebook. It seemed so far away now...a place I spent so long looking out to this very spot...eternity, I thought. I moved my body closer to the serpent, closer to the trunk. I could smell it now, The Tree. It smelled of honeydew and gardenias. I slid my fingers up its branches, inching them like caterpillars across glass. Adam was still nowhere to be found. I came to the fruit. It was unlike any of the other fruits in The Garden. Tiny volts of electricity shot through my body. My skin shimmered even brighter. I stared at its rainbow like color...and with one swift jolt, I pulled it from The Tree’s hold.
I held the fruit in my hand, shaking. It seemed to almost sing to me, calling my lips to touch its magnificent flesh. I held it to my mouth...I could nearly taste it. Quickly I threw it away from my face. Splashing into a nearby pond, lily pads jolted across the water and tiny pearlescent frogs leapt to the grassy edge. I stared at its sparkle from the shallow depths of the pond. “Try again, my love,” the serpent whispered. “We don’t always succeed on our first try.” I looked around nervously. Everything remained in its place. The same as it had always been—butterflies dancing, fawns and bunnies flitting about. The serpent had not lied again. I ran my fingers across the trunk, same as before, following its golden luster. Slid across its branches like caterpillars moving across glass. I grabbed the fruit. Tiny shocks, again, were sent jolting through my body. I pulled it off The Tree and shoved it straight into my mouth. What was this ecstasy? A flavor I’d never tasted before. This complete euphoria? It was as if all of the stars in the sky burst into billions, no...trillions of pieces in my mouth. It was sweeter than figs and pears combined and more poignant than persimmons, at the same time. The serpent looked on in complete wonder. It’s eyes nearly glazed over. Then, suddenly, it hit me. My flesh had less sparkle. The garden looked far more dull. Once shades of emerald now looked more olive. The fawns and bunnies flitted less about, and the butterflies seemed to be guided more by the wind and less by the love of dance. It was rather hot, now, and annoyingly uncomfortable. Why was I here to begin with? Had I not noticed this glaring sun before. I pulled myself closer to the trunk of the tree—no longer golden, now much more brown. I slid down...all the way to the ground, my bottom now touching the soil, dare I say, sand.
I twisted my hair between my fingers. The serpent slithered close to my chest, resting his head along my shoulder line. I twisted and twisted. Each strand, again, mirroring that of the serpent. Why had I spent so much time staring at The Tree and never eating from it? Why would I not want to taste its delightful fruit? It filled me up, but left me wanting more. I reached above my head, hair tangling around my arm, and yanked another fruit from the branch. Without looking, I plopped it straight into my mouth. I chewed and stared off in the distance. How long had I been here, in this Garden? Why did I never wander out beyond the horizon? What lay out there? The serpent seemed to smile while I wondered. It nuzzled closer into my neck. I pet the serpent ever so slightly...its flesh still smooth. “I wonder, Serpent, I wonder, what if more trees like this exist? What if they exist beyond the horizon? What if the other creatures of The Garden should find out of this fruit? What if there are plentiful amounts for us all to eat? Why...I should never eat another fruit from any other tree again!” I reached up and grabbed another. Tossed it right into my mouth. I chewed vigorously and pulled down another. “Serpent?” I said, quizzically, setting the fruit down. “Serpent, why had you not found me before? Surely you must have traveled some distance. This must be why. It must be that you came from beyond the horizon.” Suddenly, my heart pounded quickly. I started to breathe heavy and tiny beads of sweat formed on my forehead. What if this fruit ran out? What if no more ever grew? I had plucked three, no...four, no... FIVE fruits already, and none had grown back like that of the other trees. I must find Adam. We must go beyond the horizon. I swept my hands across the branch and shook it vigorously, frantically, really. Four more fruits dropped from it. I picked them from off the ground, and nestled them into my arms, tightly pressed against my chest. “Come, Serpent, come round my neck, we must tell Adam of our find.”
I ran faster than any gazelle I had seen run in The Garden. My legs seemed to move without me thinking. The serpent held tightly to my body...almost morphing into mine. His tail wrapped around my arm. “ADAM,” I screamed. Birds jolted from the trees, mimicking my cry. “ADAM!!!” Faster and faster I ran, the blades of grass now cutting into my skin. I pushed through bushes and swung my arms to fight off insects. Dragonflies were no longer wondrous creatures, but a nuisance. I smacked one down with the tips of my fingers. I watched it fall to the ground and kept running. “Adam!” I was nearly out of breath. Moving my twists of hair from my face, I ran right into Adam. I fell abruptly onto the ground. My once glistening skin now dusty and brown. I wiped my face...dirt slipped into my mouth. I spit. “My beautiful bride, why do you spit upon your arrival? Did you taste too much honey this morning?” “No...Adam,” I struggled for air. I pointed at the serpent and pulled out THE fruit. “Adam, this serpent...” “STOP RIGHT THERE!” He exclaimed. “Is that fruit from The Tree? You know this is forbidden!” Adam pulled the fruit from me with such vigor. “Listen, Adam. This serpent here, it has traveled from afar, from beyond the horizon. It moved like the river through The Garden and came to my feet. Adam, it brought with it great news! Adam, you must know, HE who told us of the forbidden tree has lied to us. The serpent showed me the truth. Adam, this fruit is like no other fruit in The Garden. It fills you. It can fill us all. We shall never have to eat from any other tree or bush! We shall go beyond the horizon and find more of these trees, and serpent will help us.” Adam looked at me with disbelief. His skin looked pasty and dull. He had not a single shimmering fleck. I looked at the serpent around my neck...Its pink skin soft and smooth. “Look, Adam, just try it. I promise you, you shall not die. Watch!” I snatched the fruit from Adam’s long fingered hands, and pressed it to my lips, and bit in, like a dog devouring its first meal. My, God, the flavor never failed. “See, Adam,” I said, mouth full of fruit, “See, it is delightful!” Adam took another fruit from my chest and held it in his hand... pulling it closer to his face. He smelled it. Turned it over two times. He wasn’t convinced. “Oh just eat it, already,’ I said, and pushed it into his mouth. The serpent lifted its head and gave what looked like a whole mouthed smile. Adam chewed. His eyes began to shine and then glaze. He swallowed. “OH MY! This flavor!” “Sweeter than figs and pears combined?” I asked. “Yes, and more poignant than persimmons, at the same time!” He exclaimed. He quickly grabbed another fruit from my grasp and drove it into his mouth, chewing voraciously. He suddenly stopped and stared at me with what looked like complete horror.
“My Bride, you...you are naked,” he screamed, covering his eyes! Naked, I thought? What was that? “Oh sweet darling, you must cover yourself! Your flesh, it is overwhelmingly bright. It is piercing my eyes. Your breasts hang like the fruit, and you’ve not enough hair to hide it all.” Adam moved about frantically trying to peer beyond his hands, looking for something to soothe his anxiety. I looked down at my body. The serpent’s flesh on mine. Why...we looked the same! I could see nothing abhorrent. I ran my fingers along my body lines. What was Adam going on about? “Adam, my love, I am confused why you are concerned with this. Can’t you, instead, wonder of the horizon? It seems so foolish to worry of serpent skin. We have so much to do, so much to see. Adam...” He wasn’t listening. How could he not think of the horizon? How could he not care to feed the rest of the creatures in The Garden. “Baby...” the serpent hissed.”Baby, he has seen the truth, and for this, he will never think as you do. He is not the same, my dear goddess, his concerns are not the same as yours.” “Hush, Serpent!” I addressed him with such haste. “Baby...” his tongue touched my collar bone lightly. “I don’t care,” I pushed the serpent’s head to the side. “Adam, my love...can you look here, at my eyes. Come see my eyes, my dear.” Adam pushed through the bushes. One hand still covering his face, the other holding some makeshift fig leaves tied together. He stumbled closer to me, and fell on top of me. His cheeks became flush. “My dear, please!’ He spoke as though he was in pain, stumbling for his words. “Please, my dear, please cover yourself with these so as you no longer torture my mind.” I stared at the leaves. How was I to adorn myself with these? Where would they go? I didn’t even understand what parts to “cover.” “Adam, my love, listen, I’m not sure how to wear these, and besides, we must start moving toward the horizon to find more fruit before the light starts to dim.” I had never noticed it dimming before. Adam scrambled to rise, and began rustling the leaves around my body. He grunted and sighed, pushing my arms up and to the side. Pulling and tying. He squeezed and shook me. “There!” He stood back with his hand to his chin. I looked down. I scratched at the leaves. “Adam, this is not comfortable. How will I move in this? I do not want to wear this.” “I am now comfortable, my love. And I can find a way to help you move. I want you to wear this.” The serpent looked up to me, as if to tell me “You see?” Adam was being hysterical. Maniacal, really. He stood back. Shook his head. Looked into the distance, then back at me and squinted. He walked forward and pulled up my hair. “Ah, yes, that’s it. That’s the distraction. You see, my love, this hair... it must be pulled back. It is too distracting, down and long. You look like...what is it...I’m not sure...you look, well, like that serpent with it down.” He reached for a vine tangled around a trunk of a tree, and ripped it from its standing. He placed it around my hair and pulled the twists away from my face. “Perfect. You stunning Angel.” I felt ridiculous. “Ok..can we...”
Just as I was about to suggest our departure, a rumbling from the sky shook through The Garden. Clouds turned grey and started to bulge up as if to pour down buckets of rain. The trees swayed to and fro, the grass lay nearly completely down from the wind. The serpent drew closer to my chest, recoiling in what felt like fear—its tongue now tightly locked inside its mouth. “Adam,” HIS voice boomed. Adam trembled, and scurried behind a bush, peering over the branch. “Where are you?” HE called. Adam crept out from behind his hiding place, and walked timidly toward HIM. “I heard you...in The Garden...” Adam’s voice said shakily. “I heard you in The Garden, and I was afraid to come out because I was, well, naked. So I hid.” Adam put his head down in complete embarassment. HE looked around. “Who, young Adam, who put this idea in your mind about being ‘naked?’” HE seemed concerned. I started to raise my arm, but the serpent pulled me in closer. HE walked closer to Adam, examining his face. “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” Adam was hesitant to respond. “ANSWER ME,” HIS voice grew impatient. Adam looked up and pointed in my direction. “That WOMAN you put here with me...she gave me the fruit and she forced me to eat it. I did not want to, but she forced it. I ate it.” Again his head bowed in disappointment. THAT WOMAN? I thought. What happened to ‘my Bride,’ ‘my Dear,’ ‘my Love?’ I was shocked by his response. I glared at him, noticing how ugly his eyes looked—how had I not noticed this before? HE walked past Adam. “What is this you have done?” He stared at me, not even noticing the serpent. I looked to the serpent. Its eyes looked up at mine. They reminded me of a kitten’s eyes. “Yes. Why yes, I did. You see, this serpent, it traveled far. Far from the horizon, and it traveled straight to me to tell me of this tree. It told me you had deceived us. You had lied to us about The Tree. It said I would not die. And die I did not. I ate from it. I ate from it again and again, and I see why you must have told this lie. You wanted this to yourself. Something as sweet, no...sweeter than figs and pears combined and more poignant than persimmons at the same time is something to hide, indeed. But, now, you see, now I see, and all of The Garden and beyond shall see. It is plentiful, I am sure...I will find it, and I will show you. There is nothing to fear.” I was confident in my response. The serpent slithered its tongue out, again, touching my neck. I felt at peace.
“Because you have done this,” HE said, pointing to the serpent...nearly pointing at me, “cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.’ HE pounded his fist to the ground. The entire Garden trembled. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers, he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” I recoiled. How incredibly awful, and painfully serious a punishment. “And to you,” HE pointed in my direction, his fingers long like Adams, but withered like a dried leaf, “I will make your pains in child bearing very severe, with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” “Pardon me,” I interrupted. “Don’t you find this to be quite an extreme punishment for a lie which YOU told? I don’t much like the idea of eternal hostility toward the serpent, nor of my desires solely to Adam. I must feed the other creatures in The Garden; I must spread the wise word of the serpent. And to be honest, I don’t believe Adam should rule over much. Not only was he hesitant in seeing the truth, he became concerned with trivial matters like nakedness. I don’t believe he is fit for much other than, well, I suppose crafting fig leaves together.” I pointed at my adornments. The serpent let out what sounded like a laugh. It’s skin became warm against mine. I touched it slightly. Still smooth as before. “So, maybe we can reassess this, ‘situation.’ I assure you, I mean no harm.” HE looked at me in disbelief. “How dare you speak to me with such disregard. You are no different than Lilith!” “Lill...” I started to repeat back but was hushed by Adam. “Let him speak. You do not want to be as Lilith was, woman!” His tone so demanding and sharp. He had never spoke to me this way before. Again, his eyes were ugly. I couldn’t stand to look at them. Maybe this is what he meant by my body. If this were the case, I too shall find something to cover that unbearable sight. HE looked to Adam, “You are not innocent in this, my young Adam. Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from The Tree, about which I commanded you, ‘you must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” I started to laugh, and quickly covered my mouth. I knew it was inappropriate. “I apologize, but this seems far less punishment than what I am being given. I suffer horribly painful childbirth, submission to him (I glared), and a break in relationship with the serpent...this is foolish, and quite honestly, I’m beginning to wonder, you see...” I snidely pushed the last fruit I had reserved for Adam in my mouth. Chewed it, savoring every bite. “I’m beginning to wonder what is true and what is not, altogether I wonder, you see, if this is real, your ‘punishment,’ and I wonder, if this may simply be another distraction from the ultimate goal; THE fruit.” HE looked furious. “Name this woman, Adam, before I send her to the realms of lowly creatures.” Wait...I thought. I have a ‘name?’
“Shouldn’t I be called what I have always been called: Darling, Wife, Love? Better, I quite like what the serpent calls me: Goddess. Adam, call me Goddess!” I exclaimed. Adam looked on at me, disgusted. “Eve...your name shall be Eve, mother of the living.” HE looked at us both, and smiled with praise. “No longer will she be like Lilith, my young Adam. She is now Eve,” HE said. HE pulled out, from his side, two long gilded pieces of material that resembled the pages of my notebook. I had never seen such a sight. ‘Cloaks,’ HE called them, and placed them on our bodies. Adam grabbed his and embraced it lovingly. Mine felt itchy, no different than the fig leaves. “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil...” I interrupted, “Yes! Perfect, now you are making sense to me!” “SILENCE!” they both shouted. The Garden trembled, again. I looked down at the serpent. It beckoned me, as if to suggest we should depart from this place. “Baby...,” it called gently. “Not now,” I whispered back. “He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever,” HE said, then placed his hand upon his staff and pointed beyond the horizon. “Out of The Garden you are cast.” This sounded wonderful. I would find more trees like The Tree in the middle of The Garden. I didn’t want to be here where I had always been, anyway, eternity here felt awful. Adam began to cry. “Adam,” I said, “this is wonderful news, we can find more trees with THE fruit. We can tell the other creatures we find of this fruit!” Adam did not, at all, seem pleased. “ I never want to hear of this fruit, again, EVE! This is what got us here in the first place. You never listen. You ARE just like Lilith! She never listened either, and away she went, and HE punished her with the death of her offspring a hundred times over. DO YOU WANT THAT, EVE?” Certainly I had no want for that. I wanted to find more trees. I sat down, looking at the horizon, twisted my hair from atop my head. “I wonder, though, Adam, did Lilith’s children die a hundred times over? Did she go beyond the horizon and find more trees? Maybe...” I thought, “Maybe it was this ‘Lilith’ who sent the serpent for me.” I touched the serpent’s skin. Smooth. I looked to Adam, he just stood crying, his head in his hands. I looked out at the horizon, again. The light was moving beyond the line. It was hazy and bright shades of red and pink. I stood up, and brushed at my legs. A fleck of glitter fell from my skin and onto the ground. I stepped on it, and walked toward the line. “Baby...” the serpent hissed, looking up at me with loving candor. “I don’t care,” I said, touching its skin once more. “Let us find Lilith.”
—Wolves London
The Death of ME
05.17.17
Unknown hour, likely late
I always knew I’d die at the hands of a man.
Men, plural, actually.
As I sat in a room lit with neon karaoke screens, loud screams, debaucherous acts, and absolute ‘sin,’ I celebrated my own funeral with overwhelming candor.
I think this was hell, and if it was, I was interested in staying a while.
I filled my lungs with chemicals known to cause cancer, and I contemplated how many drinks it would take to come to the realization that all of it was actually over; that, or forget that it was over.
I tapped the glass anxiously
I had been here before—time and time again, it was the same tired allegory of a woman broken into pieces that would never be put back together, crushed from heartbreak and mental anguish, and shut up for the sake of being something more than the aforementioned wished for her to be.
The men sitting next to me celebrated with the same understanding as to why I had been shut away to begin with—they were part of the problem, and even more so part of the solution. Speaking another language and peering at me through round rimmed glasses, my cock-carrying confidants and I poured more drinks, and cheers’d to my immense sadness.
I cried.
The whiskey was terrible.
Bittersweet.
Why had I been brought to this place? To forever be memorialized in the dark space of my own eggshell colored sepulcher?
My dress glimmered under the red light.
Martyrs always die at the hands of others, though, do they not; and with the respect to one who owns the physical attributes of breasts and a vagina, it would always be at the hands of men.
It is likely my death was scripted from the moment I was allowed to speak, given that my mouth had always ‘overstepped’ the bounds of what many would consider acceptable. I was after all, never one for shying away from the brutally honest truth, nor for calling out the ignorance of others who had actually overstepped the bounds of what I would consider acceptable. For example, receiving unsolicited images of terribly sad dicks by men who thought such images would illicit a response from me other than describing in great detail just how incredibly disgusting and sad said dick was.
Unsolicited dicks are never any good, and I mean that in both the proverbial and literal sense.
And so it was, people do not like a loud-mouthed woman, and I had exited the womb loud as fucking imaginable.
It never helped that my words came packed with profanities that many assumed offensive simply for the sake of said words having a previously held connotation derived by people who were to inept to understand that regardless of the word, the intent and use of the word meant more than the word itself.
Fuck you!
Waffles you!
It makes no difference, but ‘fuck’ was a commonly used word in my vocabulary right alongside ‘existential nihilism,’ so its understandable how I made sense of my world and others did not. Yet, I suppose it wasn’t just the use of the word ‘fuck,’ but my adept understanding of the action of ‘fuck.’ Yet, I had tits, and having such meant that not only was I not to use words like ‘fuck,’ nor practice the action of ‘fuck,’ but I shouldn’t even know what existential nihilism was. It was a gift and an outright curse, my birth, and as mentioned, it would lead to my end.
Fuck it.
Here we sat, a Korean ballad playing in the background—a song I begged the boy of my dreams to sing to me every night—going over all of the potential reasons for my dethroning. The whiskey still disgustingly bittersweet, and I recounted the first time I’d told a man to “fuck-off” for attempting to cage me.
My father.
Such action, on my behalf, was met with a swift, hard, backside of his very large hand and would continue to be the action I was met with every single time I stood up to “The Man,” with a capital “M.” After years of such, I realized I had legs and could walk right-the-fuck-out of that place and any other, for that matter. I caused my own death.
Then came bosses and boyfriends, the women who followed their bosses and boyfriends who carried out similar actions as my father, and my overly outward personality merely continued to grow like wildfire in the hot California sun after years without rain.
Death once.
Death twice.
Death ten times over.
I was tired of dying.
I swirled my drink back and forth…nothing would help its terrible taste, but I was beginning to forget the reason for drinking it in the first place, and the reality of my impending death.
So swirl I did.
I touched my tits.
Still there.
How dead was I actually? I looked across to the man in front of me and pulled my dress down.
Just a peak.
“How are they?” I said candidly.
“Wow!” He responded.
“Yeah…wow is right,” I said wit a smirk. I thought I was pretty hilarious. They are just tits, after all. He had them too, in fact, just smaller and serving absolutely no real purpose. Tits, as they were, were nothing more than sacks of fat biologically meant for women to provide sustenance to one’s own child, but man had made a mockery of them and turned them into sex objects, so, people liked to look at them without any regard for what they were: body parts. How was it that the Himba women of Africa’s Namibia could have their tits on constant display without any damnation, but a woman of the ‘free world,’ was shunned for doing the same?
It must be the clay.
Or moral relativism.
Or Christianity.
Either way, ‘tits out’ was not an acceptable form of behavior, and I had, from day one, had my tits out.
I was four the first Time I flashed someone, and the receiver of my behavior was Mickey Mouse. I was at Disneyland, and torturously excited to meet that fucking mouse, so when the moment arose that I did, indeed get to stand next to him, I just lifted up my shirt and screamed with joy. Everyone should have known at that exact moment I should have been metaphorically “taken out to pasture.”
Satan incarnate.
It caused such a clamor, of which I could not understand as I was, after all, only four, that I suppose I continued to enjoy such response throughout my life. Merely showing one’s body could elicit a range of reactions and emotions that not much else other than using the word ‘fuck’ could cause. ‘Tits out’ was my jam.
‘Tits out,” let me remind you
Is under all circumstances
Unacceptable
To “The Man,” with a capital “M.”
Glasses clanked together and the neon light continued to burn down on all of us. My sepulcher was fading away, and we were all laughing, at this point. I had sang a few songs, and caused many a tear to form, but there was nothing quite as moving as the realization that I could make others ‘feel’ moved by my actions, and that, even more so, others could do the same.
It was in that moment that I realized: outside of my sailor-trained mouth and ‘boundary pushing’ personality, I encouraged others to behave similarly, and THAT, truly, was what would forever be the act which causes one to drag another into the streets and bludgeon them until no more air entered or escaped their lungs. Followers of ‘radicalism’ cause demise.
My own.
And I had many followers, which meant that this machine of men—men who carried psuedochristian ideals and outright disrespect toward women—would, at some point, join forces of the men from the past and delete the virus. I hadn’t realized I had entered The Matrix, and I was ‘The One,’—and no, not Neo, he is not “The One”…Agent Smith…with tits.
So my death came, by the hands of angered men and women encouraged by angered men, and I was awakened to the reality that just as before, this death would not last.
I took one last sip of the tainted poison juice.
Resurrection would come just as it had so many times before.
Death becomes me, but does not end me.
—Wolves London
Twas Writ
08.22.22 10:00 AM
I was born of fire and brimstone
Born from a wild wolfed woman and a maverick of a man.
The sun sweltering to the point of a hiss
Like a serpent having whispered in the ear of a maiden lost in an oasis all her own.
The hottest day of summer bore witness to a child even the gods might fear.
Rebel without a cause
Renegade girl.
Strange it might be, however, that the child born of God’s rite be left in a basket
On her own.
A sacrifice from the martyr for the forgiveness of the King.
Strange it might be that the child born from God’s breath and fashioned in the temple of Sameal be blessed by the cosmic divine.
You see, I was born from rootin’-tootin’ cowboys and Debussy listening debutantes.
I rode upon the back of a horse before my bare feet ever touched the ground,
And I did so in a dress fashioned from handmade silk.
I understood beasts before I knew the power beasts could wield, and I knew the value of a thing before ever knowing the value of a coin.
I was born in cities made of concrete covered in futile vines dreaming of lands made from clouds.
I understood the jungle before ever having been lulled by the laurel of an Oleander, and I knew the world beyond the living before ever knowing the world exists.
Cowboys and debutantes
Deities and demons.
What little I knew, then, though, I was born in the scorching heat of the desert only to sit upon an Oracle’s throne in the kingdom.
You see, I was born of the lion’s mane on the cusp of the virgin.
The deepest parts of my soul drowning in the poison of the scorpion’s tail, but it was the Aqua to which I owe my completeness…fore it was the water bearer who was rising on the 18th hour in the eastern horizon that evening in the god forsaken blistering heat.
For it was he, the Aqua, who was so beautiful and charming that the gods would intervene to bring him to the palace throne, and it would be he who would fill my cup of mysticism, and continue to keep my fire burning.
That tiny piece of wind on the eastern horizon foretold all the elements perfectly aligned, that I stood as the center of the kingdom by every Lion’s destiny with the backing of the gods in their own.
I was born from polluted wine and paramount wonder
Seething Anger and unbridled torment like atoms of carbon under immense pressure, I came into this wasteland flush faced and full of unknown whimsy
Like a cherub born to the honor of becoming a seraph.
Six wings covered in eyes
Singing to the lord almighty
Burning at the throne.
Strange it might be, though, I was born so fragile and small yet given the lineage of the Nephilim.
Giants in a world before the great flood, a product of sinister saints adorned in golden made wings and the sanctity of salacious women.
Or so it was told.
The plasma in my veins tells this story
It is drawn in my code.
I was born, you see, of something more than rotting flesh and decaying bone.
Born more than just mere dust
And so it goes, to dust I shall not return.
Born of the divine
Lived by the divine
Channeled through the divine.
I was born, you see, to enter the fifth element.
In a vast never-ending material filling the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere where light travels and gravity came to exist, the essence gods breathed and personified by the son of Erebus.
I was born for a place beyond earthly reasoning.
That Aether.
A place that Plato would tell Aristotle
was told in my cards,
Calculated in my charts.
I was born
Renegade girl
Wild wolfed woman
Lion’s mane and virgin’s blood.
I am both the beasts that howl and the birds that fly.
Rootin’-tootin’ cowboys and Debussy debutantes
Deities and demons
Scorpion’s venom and Aqua’s ocean.
I am both the light bearers and the walkers of shadows.
Glittering diamond dust and godly intervention.
Of fire I was born
Of wind and water, too
Of earth and of Aether
I was born for this,
For this I will become
And for this I will remain.
It is written in the stars
I am no longer the martyr, but forever your muse.
—Wolves London
I See My Shadow; My Shadow Sees Me
07.07.22
I like the way the light hits the edge of my bedroom door
Casting a shadow across the adjacent wall.
It distracts me from the outline of a fetus in the woodgrain alongside my bed.
Haunting me
That fetus.
Staring at me
Constantly reminding me that my womb has remained barren
Reminding me of what has been stolen from me more times than I care to count.
I am less a woman because of such
Having been taken from
Having been used like a toy
Not even like a doll…a doll at least receives a hair brushing every now and then.
I am a toy
Played with when convenient
Tossed away when not.
I watch the shadows dance across the room as the sun shifts throughout the day.
My cat jumps up onto the bed
Letting out a large meow directly in my face.
The light touches her long whiskers.
She, too, attempts to distract me
But she is dying.
Seventeen years she’s spent every night next to me
Calming my anxieties
Helping me to forget all the masks I’m forced to wear throughout the day
Helping me to forget WHY I wear them.
But she is dying
And I will soon have nothing but these shadows to distract me.
I pet her fur
Much like the brushing of hair
Knowing she’s the only loyalty I’ve ever had
All too conscious it’s only because I’m a reliable food source.
I would like to think it’s because she loves me
But I am not a cat
Just a woman laid to rest every night staring at that fetus.
Let’s be honest, though
I probably started out not good enough.
Entering into this world having been left for the wolves
Forced to become one.
I probably started out distracting myself with the shadows
As I was robbed of my youth
There was no fetal outline, then.
It was just me
I was the fetus.
Too vulnerable for the world.
Maybe that outline carved so deeply in the woodgrain is me…
Maybe that is why it sickens me to see it.
Less a constant reminder of what I am not
And more a reminder of what I have been.
I watch the light hit the edge of my feet
Casting shadows from my toes along the bed.
I stare for a while
Tracing that outline in the woodgrain with my fingertip.
I can feel it
That fetus.
My cat lets out another meow
The death reminder.
She is right
My cat.
I think tomorrow I’ll scratch out that fetus.
My choice after all.
I think I’ll scratch it out the moment the light begins to touch the bedroom door.
I touch her fur
My cat.
Tomorrow…
Tomorrow the shadows won’t distract me.
Tomorrow that outline will be gone.
—Wolves London
Nostalgic Innocence
06.07.22 2:38 am
I stay up late enough to watch the fog roll in.
The sky, lit up by building lights that look like windows made on film strips, becomes overtaken by the condensing vapor.
Billowing over the domicile tops, it reminds me of snow on mountain caps.
It reminds me of Christmas.
The entire family gathered around the smell of pine trees and cinnamon late at night, the room illuminated by holiday lights.
Wishing for snow.
Although, it never snowed here.
My baby sister still the size of a life-size figurine elated to be alive.
I wonder what our film strip would show?
I miss those tiny lights
My sister that small.
Sometimes when the night brings with it a rush of cold air, I turn the oven on leaving the door open to warm my body.
My father would do this for me as a child.
Too grumpy and spoiled to get out of bed in the mornings because of the cool draft that would inevitably brush my legs after leaving the comfort of my blankets, he would carry me to the oven—already on and balmy.
Half asleep, I’d stand in front of its life-giving heat
Thawing.
He did this well into my adolescence.
I miss my father
My innocence.
Sometimes I rise early enough to watch the fog burn off.
The air always smells fresh at this time.
The birds seem more chipper than at nightfall.
I watch the city crows circle and float
The dancing macabre somehow more magic than morbid.
They toy with my dog in our 8th story window.
He longs for outside sometimes.
I see it in his eyes
the same way I long the memories of waking up with my grandparents on mornings just like these.
I always thought the rain was coming, my child-sized mind, as the sky was filled with an overcast grey.
Geography, a concept unknown to me then
fog mimicked rain clouds to me.
Maybe I did understand geography
Maybe I understood rain differently.
It was my grandfather who explained this heavy liquid air to me
How it came and went every night and day
Its paradox.
He explained it like he did planes, baseball, and Frank Sinatra.
I miss my grandfather in this form
The idealized version I made of him.
But just like the aerosol that fills my night sky, my innocence— innocence I think I miss so much—must go with the dawn of the morning sun.
Burned off by evaporation
Much like the open oven.
Thawed.
— Wolves London
Witch=Woman Woman=Witch
02.21.22
They dragged us out by our hair
Out into the street.
Threw our bodies to the ground
covered in dirt and debris
pointing at us as if we were swine.
Screams heard all around
Children clenching tightly to their mothers
women who would face the same punishment if they were to speak out of turn or out of place.
They stood tall, dark, and overbearing with exclamations that we had practiced in the realms of seduction and manipulation
casting spells on innocent men, preying on their naive hearts and minds.
Accused we were of practicing the dark arts under the guise of healing.
Accused we were of being nothing more than widowers and beggars.
Summoners of the devil
Pagans
And worshipers of the earth
ritualistic, idol driven, child bearing demons.
We, after all, were the apple eaters, and we were to pay for our behavior
Witch or not.
We were tied together
Hands behind our backs, woven like threads of a blanket made to keep warm in the most bitter cold of winter.
Our feet bare and our chests covered.
We were the land sirens luring them in with our songs of nurture and love.
Clever trick they said.
What clever games you have played.
We had corrupted the youth and turned them into creatures of spitting, writhing fits.
We were not mothers nor daughters nor the creation of God, but serpents of the underworld.
We were ugly and evil.
All one had to do was see that we carried all the physical attributes separate from man
it was all that was necessary to qualify us.
They stood us up
Tightly bound to poles
In an effort to show the public what we truly were.
Our backs against the wall
Our faces forward.
They whispered and gasped.
They covered their mouths in disbelief.
Disgusting
Putrid
Lurid succubus’
They knew exactly how to categorize us: Women.
They marched us out to the center of the square.
They exclaimed our wrong doings.
WITCH!
WITCH!
WITCH!
They all chanted.
WOMAN.
WOMAN.
WOMAN.
They all reflected.
Children tossed stones as their mothers looked on in encouragement.
This, after all, was to be their destiny.
Everyone waited for the light.
The bringer of justice.
They did not gag us
nor cover our mouths.
They allowed for us to breathe every bit of air.
Air that was soon to become smoke.
They carried their torches with such assuredness.
The flames enveloping the sky.
MAN.
MAN.
MAN.
They stomped.
They pressed the torches to the ground, setting the debris below our feet into a wildfire of damnation.
BURN!
BURN!
BURN!
To ashes they would send our form back.
They would never have to worry of our kind again.
As we became engulfed in flames,
We did not scream
Nor pray
Nor cry
For this was our plight for our kind.
—Wolves London
Black Magic Woman
02.15.22
I climbed the spiraling wooden stairs of my antique apartment.
Each step creaked loudly with the weight of my foot,
And being that it was late into the night, early into the morning,
I moved with all the grace I had in order not to wake the neighbors.
As I reached the top floor, I could hear the faint laughter of young women atop the roof.
The sound of old French music drifted through the crack of the door
Wafting out like a warm enticing aroma.
Given my night had already collapsed in on itself, I was weary of spending space with the energy of others; yet, I couldn’t bring myself to turn back around and descend the staircase.
The creaks too loud
The weight behind my own apartment door far too heavy to bear.
I pushed the door open with a light touch.
The smell of cigarettes and floral candles drifted through the air.
The sky was dark, and all I could see was the blurred shapes of three girls glimmering behind dancing fire lit wicks.
I sat across from them
Nervous of their presence.
I didn’t want to be seen even if it was dark, and I could feel the weight of their gaze.
I breathed in deeply the cool Los Angeles air and felt a sudden comfort of my place, here.
The uneasiness diminished, and I began sinking into my seat.
The fire flickered in front of me
The hills of Hollywood lightly sparkling behind me.
It was always home in these hills.
I could breathe a little easier, here.
I tried not to stare at my mesmerizing counterparts.
They seemed to be drunk on the moon and seduced by the sounds of Chris Stapleton and Portishead.
They sang along, loudly,
I sang along, quietly.
As the songs grew stronger, they began swaying their bodies to the rhythm.
Moving like serpents to and fro...like a river meandering.
They moved with such glamour
Such elegance
And not in the way I did by my attempts to not wake the neighbors.
This was different...
They moved without a care in the world for who might see.
The neighbors did not matter here.
They moved as if they were being moved by the sound.
I both admired and found myself envious of how sure they were of themselves.
Their confidence flowed out of them like waterfalls washing over all of us.
I wanted it
That confidence.
I wanted to be drunk on the moon and seduced by the sounds of Chris Stapleton and Portishead.
I wanted to have no care in the world for who might see.
I sank further down into my seat unable to take my gaze off such a spectacle.
I looked on without skipping a beat as one of the women grabbed the railing along the rooftop wall and waved her body from side to side
Like a flag blowing in the wind.
I was hypnotized.
She sang along to the song—out of key and horribly not on time—and continued to dance
I found myself lost in her ability to be entirely free.
It was beautiful.
Awe inspiringly beautiful.
I wanted that.
That beauty.
It was then I realized I had become drunk on their presence and seduced by the idea of pure, honest, expression.
I wanted to stay lost here, forever.
I never wanted to leave this rooftop.
As my toes began to grow too cold for comfort, and my body began to shiver from not enough warmth, I made the decision to descend back down the stairs.
I needed to face what lie beyond my apartment door.
I could not stay here forever.
Lost.
As I left, one of the young women called out,
“I hope we did not disturb you.”
I turned around and smiled—even though they couldn’t see.
“Absolutely not,” I replied.
“You made me existentially happy, I can’t thank you enough...”
They looked on...I could see their eyes behind the dancing light.
“Good,” they said.
They giggled like fairies and continued dancing.
As I made my way back down to my floor, I realized I had never felt such magic before.
Pure Magic.
— Wolves London
“I desire the things that will destroy me in the end.”
— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
How To Find A Unicorn
02.07.22
There’s something in the way she looks at you.
A unicorn.
Billions of years of star birth and death, of engulfing entire solar systems into a particle void
all glittering in that deep abyss we call eyes.
You are lost in her depth like an endless sea wading in that gaze.
She stares at you, and you cannot help but feel the weight of countless nirvana exits and reentries.
She has seen lifetimes only the most poetic have written about.
She has bore witness to the philosophies men died for
knowing their tragedies like playwrights only Shakespeare could conjure.
She is ancient wisdom and current timeline coexisting in space time.
A unicorn.
You find comfort here
Her staring at you.
You find terror here
Her staring into you.
There’s something in the way that each tiny glimmer in those dark sea spun eyes let you know that the soul beneath, wrapped up in that cloth of a body, is brighter than any light you’ve ever seen.
You can feel her.
There’s something in the way her skin sparkles.
A unicorn.
Like the flesh of a snake met by the fur of a mink dancing in a desert of diamond dust
A violent display of absolute utter beauty.
Voltaire told of her flesh in stories one thought were for understanding the value of life.
Only to find the value lie in her core.
It is soft to touch but terrifying to attempt
For touching her skin will leave you wanting to never touch the body of another again.
The unicorn’s skin, you see, could give you shelter for a lifetime
Your face pressed softly in her bosom.
The unicorn’s skin, you see, feels like home
Like the hearth of your own mother filling the room.
She is ember after ember dancing in the night.
A unicorn.
There’s something in the way her mind moves.
A unicorn.
Racing faster than a humming 1,600 horsepower engine
Koenigsegg merely pales in comparison next to her.
Her brain is a constant ebb and flow of intake and disseminate—usurping knowledge as though the data were material resources necessary for survival and turning it over like seeds ready for sewing.
Mining the soil for all its nutrients.
Replenishing it with all its supplements.
She has novels of information at her disposal waiting for the moment in which a passerby might stumble upon her.
She wants to tell them
The stories.
She yearns for you to hear them
Hoping she is not alone collecting them to share.
A unicorn’s mind, you see, is something of magic and mysticism.
She’ll have you drunk from fairytales that only she can make come true.
A unicorn’s mind, you see, can be drunk from poison and still make you believe in a reality only a Philosopher King could weave.
There is something in the way she moves toward you.
A unicorn.
She moves in the depths of the shadow world as a beacon of light.
A hopeful signal to the underworld that you are safe here.
She watches the shadows with awe
She is a part of them.
Enamored by their darkness
the shadows
you cannot help but become lost in your own.
She will reveal your innermost self
Vulnerable and wet.
Like having just been birthed from the Venus
She will nurture your most sensitive parts
Naked and afraid
Folding into your depths her warm golden light.
There is something in the way she moves from you
A unicorn.
Pulling you in like a tear in the fabric of the universe.
The gravity of her presence is felt in any moment you might happenstance upon her.
The unicorn’s movement, you see, is intoxicating
Like an elixir you can never get full from.
Sweet like honey
Cliche in all its properties but honest in all its medicine.
She is pure superlative sorcery.
A unicorn.
A unicorn, I have found, is not only the rarest of all creatures, but the most tender.
Having been lured into traps set by those attempting to portray the characteristics of the maiden.
She has been tied up and beaten.
Her mana stolen from her over and over.
Men traveling from all sides of the world to find her
Moved so heavily by her folklore they would sacrifice all of their morality to take her of all her purity.
All her wisdom.
All her warmth.
All her enchantment.
A unicorn I have found, hides her identity behind a veil of human secrecy
Terrified of the snares left for her.
Traumatized by those who have touched her poorly
Abused her grace
Taken her love for granted.
A unicorn I have found
as much love as she wishes to give freely
she is always too aware of man’s wicked gestures and shrouds her heart in armor not even the strongest knight could take.
He will never love her properly
For he has not seen, himself, the billions of years of star birth and death
The engulfing of solar systems.
He has not seen lifetimes lived poetically.
He is not born of flesh that sparkles in the desert sun.
He has never bore the heat of a mother’s hearth.
He cannot fathom her mind nor her movement.
He can only drink from her and take from her
Over and over.
It is legend, then, that only a virgin can tame her,
A unicorn.
but I have found she is the vestal, herself.
Martyr
Saint.
It Is only in herself does she find her truth
Awaken from her self-imposed celestial slumber.
I had searched for a unicorn my entire life
Until one day, sick from fermented grains covered in stains from tears cried far too many times that I saw out of the corner of my sea spun eyes a speck of diamond dust in a desert of snake scales and mink fur.
Tracing the specks with the tip of my finger, I felt the warmth told in tales I read as a child.
My heart raced
Raced as fast as a humming 1,600 horsepower engine.
Koenigsegg couldn’t compare.
I searched my whole life for a unicorn
Wanting to believe in her magic
That I forgot to stare into the eyes of the one looking back at me everyday I dragged myself out of bed, forcing myself to believe there was something worth living for outside of the constant pain of man’s entrapments.
I had hidden myself so well in a veil of human secrecy that I forgot there were billions of years of star births and deaths wading in the abyss that was my eyes.
I had entered and exited nirvana more times than I could remember.
I had lived, first hand, the philosophies men had died for.
I walked in the shadows, enamored by them, offering a beacon for those wading in the void.
I was the unicorn
I am the unicorn.
Suddenly I felt at home
Warmed by my own hearth
Full on my own elixir.
I found a unicorn.
I was her.
— Wolves London