I think I’m beginning to understand.
You don’t believe anything this dirty world says, so you can tread right over it, as if it’s a layer of thick scum that skins the water.
I kissed your ankles and your knees. I am not afraid anymore of your spiders and the cold spots on your shoulders.
It appeared you were floating. You had a string in your teeth and when you tugged, the trees collapsed.
At that point, I couldn’t tell if your skin was a sort of hallucinogenic drug, or if I was just going crazy again.
You slipped your tongue inside my mouth, and when you pulled it out, the colors of the earth inverted. The sky deepened into a rich darkly green, and the grass, turned into velvet. You took me into the broiling meadow where the blue flowers were Technicolor and sweating purple.
Beyond the meadow lay a chasm.
“I’m not ready to go down there,” I said.
“You’ve been down there before,” you responded.
“One day you’re going to murder me,” I said.
“Never.”
“Eat my bones.”
“Never.”
“Take me into hell.”
You purred and rubbed your head against my legs. Your insect noise pulsed through my bones. I writhed in the grass in my torn angel wings. I could taste the earth through my fingers, and it tasted sweet.
Demon, you are drugs and you are my Salvador Dali. You are the monster under my bed and the girl my mother would’ve wanted me to marry.
You took the toy pistol from my hip and pressed it to my heart. Bang. Bang.
I would not go down into the chasm, even though my outstretched fingers touched the edge, even though it called to me in my father’s voice.
“Treat me like a real girl,” I said. “Take me somewhere nice first.”
You could’ve pushed me over the edge, but instead, you led me to a cool grove and fed me water that trickled down your wrists until I stopped dry heaving.
For a while after that, we didn’t wander into the forest anymore. You took me to the roof and taught me how to make my body float with my mind. We traveled to the city and walked on the side of skyscrapers, your hair a guide around my ankles and wrists. On a boat in the middle of a lake we drank port wine and dined on leeks, foie gras, and tabs of acid.
We stepped on the water and skimmed across it as if it were glass. The water cooled and calmed. When the moon stretched across the lake, we saw sunken boats, little gold coins, and a dead boy twenty years old with his skull a nest.
We took a road trip with Saint Peter in the night, all the while huffing nitrous oxide and smoking joints. You trilled behind me, touching my shoulders, running your fingers through my hair. Saint Peter said we’d keep driving until we touched God. We’d stick our fingers right into his pearlescent center.
We made it to the edge of the city before running out of gas and money.
Demon, many would disapprove of our relationship. This became apparent that night, on the side of the road, the nitrous oxide evaporating in my blood, when you sat in my lap and a black van swerved past as the driver yelled, “faggots!” And how later, when we stopped at a diner and the waitress asked your order, you let a tarantula loose into her blouse.
I’ve cradled in my lap Charlie’s insomniac shuddering head, and I’ve been fucked half dead by the artist, shrouded in blood and flies, but nobody’s ever held me like you. You are warm underneath bed sheets, my baby cocoon, and even though our bed is covered in insects, I would invite no one else. When you tilt my head back with your skinny fingers and whisper “Hush, hush, close your eyes,” you give me dreams in which I am a goddess.
After the money ran out, I turned into a grifter and a thief. Maybe you were content to eat locusts and stick your hands into honeycombs, but I never got used to the textures. I could’ve just gone back home and gone to college on Momma’s money, like most young punks. Though, have you noticed you can actually see the sky here? The air doesn’t taste sour and smoky. I can run from one side of the street to the other without collapsing because there’s not six inches of black factory tar lodged in my lungs. It’s clear and clean here. The sky is not chasing me with threats of cancer and emphysema, there is no spillover of carnivorous plants feeding off the toxins of the earth, no Momma to wheedle away from the mask that would transform her into an Exorcist.
I could breathe.
I started going with Saint Peter to bars, to steal wallets from young men while we kissed them. She hooked me up with a friend of a friend, and I dealt weed out of our rickety small bedroom to college kids, bored scientists, and wives with bad backs. I lifted toothpaste and razors from drug stores, socks and panties from high-end clothing stores, with my aluminum foil lined bag to block the security detectors. Nobody ever taught me how to manage my money, oh the tragedy, so I wasted what little I earned. I bought a plush blue coat I found in a vintage store. A bone necklace for my sweetheart. A sushi dinner with escolar and a bottle of imported Japanese sake. A night at a dance club chasing down ecstasy dealers and girls with cocaine noses in the bathroom.
You don’t need to save money when, at any moment, you feel as if you will die. It’s like your heart is tied to a string around your fist, an invisible clock ready to be smashed.
Do you remember when we convinced the faux-French “Francois” into taking us home for dinner? At least he wasn’t lying about being rich, though it’s kind of hard to fake a good suit and well-bred posture. I remembered, after he fed us Chinese leftovers and a two hundred dollar bottle of wine (he made sure we knew how much it cost), you reached over and loosened his tie.
“I swear I’ve seen you before,” the Francois said, as you leaned over and gave him a mouth of bugs.
“Hey Francois,” I said, mad drunk on his wine. “Aren’t you going to fall in love with us?”
When I went to set the wine glass down on the table, it fell to the floor and shattered. I didn’t care, I was already rolling across the table, my back crushing the violet vase and bending the silverware. Francois, what golden eyes you have, I’ve never noticed how your swallow gets stuck in your throat. Never invite a mad girl and her demon into your house, they’ll ruin the good carpet.
Now just drape my skin over your arm, hiss, I’m trailing piss and honey, hiss. I could unzip for you. I’ll be your red and warbling muscle-bound monster, and you’ll be my toy.
Demon, this language has been inside of me since I can remember. It’s been eating its way through my organs, poison rot and festering crystal. It felt so natural to touch his lips where the spider clung, and open my mouth to hissssssssss.
To ke-ke-ke-ke-ke-ke.
Francois, with the golden eyes, coughed up the spider. He breathed the word “monster,” and it struck me as hilarious. They’ve called me child murderer, baby girl killer, but never “monster.” And never a “monster” with such sober shock. I loomed over him, bigger, monstrous, ready to roar. Yes, I’ll be your monster, Francois the rich and Frenchless. Look at the acid scars on my throat and arms. Look at the scars on my thighs as I hike up my skirt. You wouldn’t believe the stories I could tell you.
We fled his house dressed in vintage dresses, with diamond and pearl necklaces strung around our throats. We ran off laughing into the darkness. When you outran me, your hair reached back to tease my throat. I discarded my heavy lace dress in the middle of the street, to catch up to you.
Only at the end of the street, at the DEAD END sign next to the bridge, did I stop to ask.
“What am I doing here?”
You pulled a string of black pearls out of your throat.
“How did I get here?”
I could’ve been a scientist, at least that’s what I tell myself. In truth, they’d never let a dirty skinned lesion-filled little brat like me into their hallowed halls. And why should they? I couldn’t even find Cignus in the sky.
Police sirens wailed. Francois must’ve called them after we ran off with his grandmother’s trinkets.
I grabbed you by the arm and we dove off the bridge into the tunnels.
In the tunnel, the sound of dripping pipes in our ears, you were still pulling pearls out of your throat and wrapping them around your wrists. Overhead the police cars pulled over. Flashlights shone across the dried-up creek.
I took your hand again, and we delved deeper into the network of tunnels.
I’m such a silly girl. “What am I doing? How did I get here?” I should’ve known by then that you never answer those questions. The stars would swallow and spit me up first.
Soon we were laughing again, tugging on the black pearls around each other’s necks, kissing and stumbling in the sewer water. We went further down into the tunnels, chasing each other, busting cobwebs. Our laughs echoed for miles, but if the police ever decided to hike up their britches and delve down here, they’d never find us.
I came across a full-length mirror, a wooden chair, a pallet, smokes, and half a bottle of Jameson. People must live down here. Scavengers, more tired than the two of us, huddled underneath faucets and pipes in a place where the police wouldn’t disturb them.
Maybe they’d go blind down here, Demon, but not us. Our eyes are shining. They’ve been waiting for the dark.
“Why are we here?” you asked, mocking, tongue pushed between your teeth.
I gripped you by the throat, black pearls crushing between my knuckles.
“You’re mine, isn’t that what you said?”
You gently tapped my fingers around your throat.
“Yours,” you whispered.
I fell into the chair, and it slid across the tunnel floor. I was alive, squirming, and hot. The demon knelt in front of me and her hands slid up my knees.
I was full of nighttime. If I wanted to, I could bite through my skin, fashion for myself a new body.
And yet the drugs had worn off long ago, hadn’t they?
I knotted my fists in your hair.
“I’m going to eat you alive,” I said.
You pushed up my skirt, the wooden chair splintering against my bare skin.
The dark concealed my blushing cheeks. Your eyes rolled up into your head as you inhaled me. You scratched my knees, whispering in spider language.
Whispering, “Love,” whispering, “Fuck.”
You were cool wherever I touched you, but my skin boiled.
Look at me now, Mom, I wanted to say.
See how I’ve tamed the creature that once tormented me. She’s my pet now, spider girl with the pink tongue. See how she shivers when I wrap my legs around her small waist. See how she pants. See how her face screams with lightning when I ask her, “Do you want it, do you want it, want me, want me.” When I knot her hair in my fingers and pull her closer.
See me say:
“Drink, baby, drink. Don’t you look away. I know I once pushed you away, cursed you, called you a bad thing. I would’ve killed you if I got my hands around your throat, but now, that’s over. I want you to drink.”
And when you pressed your mouth between my legs, when I felt your teeth, I transformed into an animal, legs digested, head twitching, my organs spilling out before me. I wanted to speak your name, but I didn’t know your name, I’d never know your name. So it was “Demon, Demon, Demon, Demon,” my tongue melting into acid in my mouth, my toes smoking in my shoes.
Maybe the ghosts of people who lived down here lurked in corners of the tunnel, trying to find where they left their Jameson, wanting a place to sleep. And here were two girls, fucking in their chair, in front of their mirror.
But it didn’t really matter, because, God, your tongue was so cool.
I came hard, black spots dancing in my eyes.
You said to me, “My horned goddess, they're beautiful.”
I looked into the mirror.
There was a girl there, with velvet-tipped horns growing straight out of her head. I reached up and touched them, soft on the edges, glass-white. They were horns, and the girl was I.
I leaned back in the chair and my horns scraped against the concrete wall.
“My family will be so proud,” I said. “Their daughter, horned goddess, Queen of the deer. I’ll never get a sweater over my head again.”
I touched the horns again, just to make sure they were still there. They must’ve been growing for years. It’d taken the inverted night, the chase, demon sex in this tunnel, for me to see them.
"Beautiful," the demon whispered.
I touched my chin, my mouth, my hands trembling, and you crawled into my lap and kissed me everywhere my fingertips fell.
A fantasy that I have sometimes:
In the middle of the night we toss in our dirty bed. Someone’s burned us bad, and we’re sick with the stench of cheap drugs. I grasp your fingers, sweating.
Then we sink.
We hold each other as we sink through the floor and miles of strata, until we arrive at a grand hall. It’s the land of the gods. When we rise we shake off those bad drugs and sweat. We realize why we struggle and shake, why we’ve become losers and deadbeats and grifters and junkies. That world above didn’t belong to us. We were curious fools; we wanted clean air when we could’ve been breathing jewels.
But now we can go home.
My throne is waiting for me, and as I walk toward it, my blood turns into wet rubies.
When I sit down, I see my reflection in the mirror at the end of the hall. My horns are fully-grown and quivering with gold. My body is coated in silver and my fingernails drip with sweet drugs, the sweetest you’ve ever tasted. They’re drugs with no bad hangover and no cheap burn. No comedown, no overdose. One taste and you’ll never dare to leave.
With a finger, I beckon you to me. You walk with a pack of dogs quelling in your hair. You are my consort, my queen. My demon and my slave. I spread my legs and you kneel.
Your eyes are festering.
You eat my silver skin. It’s a slow and fine feast. First you shred the skin of my feet away from my bone, into tiny strips to dissolve on your tongue. My legs and knees are next. You glow as you swallow pieces. When you suck my fingernails the drugs melt your skin into pale silk.
In the tunnels below the city, we didn’t encounter any monsters or homeless knife boxers. Not even a shuddering, lone policeman, praying his flashlight battery wouldn’t die. I pulled down my skirt and we left the way we’d come, through the entrance underneath the bridge. We emerged underneath the night sky. I no longer heard the sirens. I felt crystals expanding in my blood.
You peeled your dress off and threw your pearls in the weeds. You were naked before me with the moon trapped in your stomach. You ran and I caught you in my arms.
I whispered, “We’ll never have this again.”
“We already have,” you said, but I was mourning you already.
You bounded into the empty creek. I threw away my stolen jewelry and chased after you. I’d find you and I’d catch you. You wanted me to catch you, up in the trees with your hair whispering, your arms snarled in the branches. I’d find you pale and naked, squeezing the sky between your knees. You’d pretend to be stuck up there, kicking your feet, your playful smile poisonous enough to kill snakes. I’d press my head to the tree trunk and offer my horns for your descent.
And in that hall of gods, I will whisper:
“Momma was wrong when she told me I’d eat them alive.
“Here my baby, eat this feast I’ve made of me. “
Part Six: Machine Like a Baby’s Fist
Chapter Twenty-One
I LURCHED AWAKE IN a cold bath, naked and numb, unable to even scream. I pulled myself out of the tub and onto the tiles. For several long seconds I felt I couldn’t breathe, my hair wrapped like a fist in my mouth. I crawled across the floor and ripped a towel off the rack to cover myself.
Saint Peter and Genie sat at the kitchen table, drinking tea in the dark. I knew it had been dark for a long time.
Saint Peter ran toward me. She smoothed my wet hair, touched my face, felt my hear
t.
“Oh god. Lily.”
“Why was I in the tub?”
“Do you remember last night?” she asked.
“I don’t remember anything. I’m freezing.”
“You wouldn’t wake up. No matter what we did.”
“You just left me in there?” I asked. “My head feels like a goddamn cathedral bell. Everything hurts.”
“You should go to bed,” Saint Peter said.
But I couldn’t sleep, because, maybe next time, I would wake up in the center of a frozen lake, or in a black tar pit. I popped the last of my aspirin. The water heater didn’t work, so I took a cold shower. My razor was too dull for me to shave and the tiny bar of soap disintegrated between my fingers.
I thought of how many people must die each year from slipping in the shower. Probably thousands.
I couldn’t find a brush, but at least the hair dryer still worked. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to untangle the knots. My head kept throbbing despite the aspirin.
I threw on ragged, dirty clothes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done laundry. We ran out of detergent a long time ago. I just took a shower, but I already smelled like sweat and grass. I curled my feet against the cold tiles, and they cracked. I stretched, and the bones in my back cracked. Nausea hit me. I ran to the toilet to vomit, but there was nothing in my stomach. I gagged and gagged.
I emerged from the bathroom again to find the sun had risen. It seemed like it’d been months since sunlight filtered through the house.
Saint Peter threw her cardigan over my shoulders because I couldn’t stop clenching my teeth with cold. I sat at the table, cross-legged, tucking my blue feet underneath me. Genie stood at the kitchen countertop. The black dogs lay around her feet.
“Why does my head hurt so bad?” I asked.
“You really don’t remember what happened?” Saint Peter said.
Something moved in my periphery.
Three dirty-faced, tall boys stood in the entryway. I hadn’t even heard the front door open, or footsteps sound through the house. Their eyes darted around the room, refusing to make eye contact. Their fingers twitched with involuntary spasms. I couldn’t distinguish one from the other and I recognized none of them.
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