We take a hit and golden-tinted bruises adorn my arms and legs, the smoulder from your cigarette rising from my skin. You tell me it’s the last time and I silently smile at you, the pain from a million paper cuts forming on the bottom of my stomach and I know is not the last time.

It was never the last time so I got out, almost not making it in the process.

I used to smoke two cigarettes every time so I could stay out of sight a little longer, I now do it out of habit.

I used to close my door and leave it unlocked so I could get out as quickly as I could, after you, I started checking the locks three times.

I used to be scared, petrified of ever receiving the slightest hint of you being interested on me again but now that it has happened I can say you don’t scare me anymore.

I can say I enjoy smoking my two cigarettes in good company, I don’t have to leave a way out and I bear my teeth in every smile.

You can’t reach me anymore.

You brought me into this world so I could be my own person or so you say.

You didn’t.

You told me you loved me while pointing out every mistake I made along the way.

You told me you loved me the same but told someone else I was being brainwashed.

You told me you loved me while deadnaming me.

You told me you loved me the same and as the words left your lips they turned sour lies to me.

You only love the idea of me you designed for me, the life you wrote for me in your head.

You love the power you have over me, the way you can get into my head.

I will do anything for you, you say, but when it comes to allowing me to be my own person, you can’t do it.

And I’m sick of it, I’m sick of it all.

It hurts so much I can’t even breathe. It hurts so much I cry day and night. It hurts more than any pain you could cause my body.

But it’s worse to think of not doing this, of living my life with the mould you shaped for me.

Cause I will be living but I will not be alive.

I will be breathing but suffocating in your hands.

I will not be me, and you will be happy.

I will die and keep walking and you will be proud.

You will be proud and you will not even tell me, cause you never do.

You make me want to die. I’m living out of spite.

You have tried to shape me and broken me in the process, and you even denied me fixing.

And now I’m looking for it myself you don’t want me to, but you have no control.

Not anymore.

Now I am my own person.

In the very edges of the darkness itself stands alone a throne only fitted for a king.

A throne hot as burning coals, covered in ash.

And there, on the throne, engulfed in the shadows, sits the snake.

I called for you when I needed it most, even if I didn’t know it yet, and you came.

You came and made my cries, screams, made my rage, power,and made my thoughts, a war song.

With your black eyes and your way of making me see the shadows I need to work through, with your firm hand to guide me if I ever get lost in them.

You took me in without question or hesitation and shaped me in forms I’m still discovering.

And in turn I made my magic yours, give you way into my house and my life.

You came to me out of necessity, yet decided to stay for the ride, and I thank you for it.

I thank you in every flame, in every tear and drop of blood.

I thank you cause you were not supposed to be, yet you showed me we write our own path, you showed me that even if something is written in stone, stone can be broken and the fragments used to path a new way.

And I will keep honouring you.

I’ll keep honouring you in every fight, loss, victory, in every wisp of smoke and smoulder, in every scratch and wound.

You taught me even broken wings have use.

I rebel for you, thanks to you.

Lucifer

Tucked away in my mind sits the memory of the sound of waves breaking against the rocks at the coast, a memory older than anything else, a longing for a home I will never return to.

I visit the edge where the sand meets the water often, if only I could return to you, deep in the seafloor and be alive in your currents again, for the kids of the ocean do not drown in its waters.

The sentence etched on my skin and my mind, told to many before me in reverence of who we are, of those who were before us.

And still, every time I find myself by you, bare feet in the sand, moon above me, you breathe new life into me, your calm inviting, your roars invigorating.

I dare to second guess myself before diving, I’ve grown accustomed to the shore but I still long for you as you are our mother and we are your children.

Your snake curling around your arm, your dance wild and mesmerizing, your powers more than we will ever come to understand, you show yourself as you are to few.

But when we need you there you are, fierce in storm, doing anything for your children, even if some have forgotten you. I will not.

I take your tales and try to breathe life into them the same way you do to me, like others before me, with the magic you left in our blood.

I speak your name proudly, as you have given me the right to do so.

Yemaya.

Grey skies look back at me. The sounds of laughter like summer rain, the touch just as soft and gentle.

And you look at me with a smile and those blue eyes I love so much.

Do you know how much I long for you when I’m away, how much I cherish your voice when you speak to me like I even deserve to be in your presence?

I have been given a gift only fitted for a hero, a god, and here I am, a mere mortal at your feet and you bless me with those summer rains, those stormy eyes and the way they mesmerise me.

My walls are falling at your presence, and I find myself trembling, begging at you for more, hypnotised by your hands playing with my skin, stirring my very core with every breath.

You bare your neck proud, taunting, and my blood rushes, and here I am, I feel inmortal by your side, and you hold me close to you, the world around us quieting in reverence.

You close the space between us with a hand to my leg, a look from your eyes, and I’m falling again, down on my knees, ready to do anything for you, if you only ask.

And as we fall asleep, I think to myself, what did I do to deserve such a gift, such an intense, unrestricted love.

The damage is done and you come around to your senses as you look and see the red mixing in the water.

Tears streaming down your face as you sit there with the shower running over you,muffling the sound of your cries, filling the air with steam.

You felt that, you felt the sting and you kept going and now the damage is done and you are either going to hide it or you will have to own to it and you feel tired.

Tired of your life, tired of the same story, tired making it look like is not that bad, like you’re happy, you should have gone deeper.

You’re also tired of your own bullshit, of feeding into the feelings, tired of falling for it and tired of hurting the ones you love because you did some damage, you should have not done it.

You sit there as the water washes away the blood and the tears, you pick yourself up and go on about your day feeling it hurt every time you walk.

I’m back in the corridor once more, and it fills me with joy to see those two black jackals sitting at the sides of your bedroom door, Anubis and Anpu; I can only tell them apart because Anpu is always to the right and also is missing the tip of the ear from that time I had to stumble with you on my back almost black out drunk so I could put you into bed.

I sit there for a minute before patting his head, comforting myself.

I can’t believe I’m back, I have missed this place so much.

I turn around and roam the house, the piano is full of dust, the kitchen left a mess and the living room still looks half decorated, you managed to buy those two statues with the money you were supposed to use for the living room but I can’t blame you, I would have done the same.

When I finally go back, I stand there, in front of the door with both hands in my pockets before taking a deep breath and walking into your bedroom, everything looks the same.

The wardrobe is half open, and I can only see black and leather, the chest of drawers has about 10 different rings scattered all over and in the corner sits the only plant you have in the whole house, my boston fern, now gone wild and overgrown.

I turn around and you’re in bed, my eyes tear up and I run to you, I hug you while you sleep and cry.

I thought I had lost you forever, I knew I had lost you forever, and then it hits me.

You are dead.

I look up, my eyes meet yours and I freeze.

Those blue piercing eyes are looking at me again, lovingly.

Please don’t do this to me.

I keep crying fixated on your gaze, I feel the warmth of your blood against my skin; I know exactly what is happening now.

I take a moment before I finally look at my hands, I know when I do it all goes into motion again, we have been here before and I have done everything a million times to keep looking at your eyes, your beautiful eyes.

I see the blood on my hands and I panic, there must be something I can do, I don’t want this to happen again, I panic and next thing I know we are back on that damned field and there is blood everywhere.

I scream and scream for help until I lose my voice, I hold your hand while you look at me, I know you shouldn’t be able to be looking at me. You’re gone.

I wake up crying, shivering and alone but I can still feel your gaze piercing through me.

If only I had held on a moment longer, if I hadn’t woken up.

If I get to pass the test I find myself on the same field at night, holding onto my knees, crying and I can try and hear your voice once again call my name, a nickname no one calls me no more, a name that died with you and was left on that field even if I still use I sometimes.

I miss you so much my wicked man, I hope you found some rest.

You lie in bed awake, you don’t remember sleeping but hours have passed like minutes so perhaps you did sleep at some point, nonetheless, you lie awake.

You check your phone and the time has not moved since you woke, or you think you woke, you haven’t checked your phone. You have not moved at all.

You look around and in doing so you realize you can’t move but you also see the dark figure in the corner looking at you with hunger eyes, but it has no eyes, it doesn’t have eye sockets, there is no face…where is the figure?

The corners blur, you can’t move but you don’t want to, maybe if you don’t move it will not see you, but it can’t see you it has no eyes, you don’t want to move.

You lie awake again, you look at your phone, the time hasn’t moved, you haven’t moved, the room seems different.

The figure looks at you and smiles, but there is no mouth.

You bolt awake again in bright morning and you slowly look up, you move your hand towards the phone and stop yourself, you look around, there is no figure.

You look at the time and it’s 10 minutes before your alarm so you put the phone down and close your eyes in relief.

You wake up. You sit up in bed and it’s not your bed, you recognize the place and cry, the figure hugs you from behind, his claws digging into your stomach.

You wake up to your alarm and gasp for hair frantically looking around, you’re alone, you’re safe but you still feel his claws every time you move, every time your clothes touch your skin in the wrong way.

You promise yourself you will never fall asleep again and go on about your day like normal like it’s been for the last 12 years.

You swear you’re fine but the figure seems to crawl around the corners of your view.

Cigarettes and coffee…

The shopping list gets shorter every day and I tell myself I’ll stop smoking.

Pick up the list, the jacket and go, with the taste of bile still in my mouth and the knuckles red from anger.

Anger.

You know how they say we feel our emotions somewhere in the body? Well I carry my anger on my back, right a the base of my neck. Is a warmth starting right from there and carrying to my shoulders until is too hot to ignore it.

Burning.

And burning I go to the shop and get my cigarettes, only they don’t have my brand so I settle for whatever they have, it burns.

And the coffee machine doesn’t work so I get instant coffee even if I have a coffee machine at home, the coffee machine at home makes such weak coffee, it takes 3 pods to make it how I like it, it burns.

So I go, pay and leave only to come back for a lighter cause mine is out of lighter fluid and I swear someone hates me cause the shop doesn’t have any fluid, it keeps on burning.

Finally I make my way home, smoking a cigarette I don’t even like, I smoke for the taste and this is not the taste, but I still smoke it, and my skin burns even hotter.

Boots off, jacket off, weak ass coffee and a taste of shitty cigarette in my mouth and I repeat the process: Cold shower, music, games…anything to stop the burning but it doesn’t go away.

So I go to bed, I go to bed burning and I don’t sleep, I lay there looking at the dark of my ceiling, burning.

I get up in the middle of the night and pace, burning and I keep on doing things, anything, everything so when it finally is morning I’m so tired that the fire is no more than some smoldering coals and I finally go to sleep.

The world wakes up and I go to sleep knowing I will wake up burning again.

It’s difficult to keep your world from burning when all you have is flames.