I Thought Life Would Be Easier Than This. That Opportunities Would Fall In My Lap, That I Would Never

They say a burnt child loves the fire; a drowned woman, too, loves the sea. And even more so the siren that dragged her to the bottom of it.

I often love men I know I have no future with. I build castles in the sand near rising tides, and I watch lovingly as they are eroded away by reality. I don’t know why I make things that don’t last. I’m afraid to have something that matters to me I think, that could hurt me more than I want it to.

Even in its darkest hour, the world carries good people on it. And we must fight for them. Love is sustainable, a replenishing and revitalizing energy. Hatred ravages the wielder just as much as those it is wielded against. It can propel you, surely, but for how long? How long can you hold the fire before you, too, are turned to ash?

Taken by the wind’s sweet pressure on my face, I am swept to the little church on the hill. Sugar atomized in the air; footsteps bringing life to the silent cedar floorboards, nothing felt simpler than there. My eyes are sealed as I soak in the feeling, finding a smile in the blustery darkness.

It hurts me, the rust. The moving water is both a curse and a blessing, I know it rusts my chainmail further but my skin is dying for the tips of its rushing fingers. My leg has been shattered beneath this fountain statue for nearly seven days. I cannot stand, I cannot move but inches left and right in its basin. How horrible a way to die in war, by a stone man, in an iron casket. Though if a living man had struck me down, I’d say the very same.

—a solider named Feo

Let her down softly, I say. Let her down softly. The little girl that lives in me enduring this world confined by rancor deserves a gentle bed to die in.

Life asked Death:

Have you ever been loved?

She responded:

Unfortunately. Flickering moments of love for me in forlorn men are common. Though they always end the same. In my arms, thinking only of you.

I feel the grating fingernails of progress on my tender skin, and wonder how it lead us here. To desolation, destruction. We were supposed to be better, stronger, kinder. But instead we are are weaker, crueler and so poignantly and horribly worse.

How disappointing that evolution does not promise improvement, only difference.

Algae bloomed on the face of the lake at summer’s height, like zits in bundles of thick and slimy green. The siren that dwelt deep in the lake’s toes could not bear the warm swampiness, it drove her mad. Not only that, but her sailor girl, her shining beacon of hope for food had wounded her in her escape. She felt rotten, her gash festered in hot white patches. No food, no beauty, no cold deep blue lake water to retreat to. All that was left for her was a walk. To find the sailor girl and give her what was coming to her.

What is love but the desire to feel sunlight through their skin. And hold there.