I've been driving
The woods ripping by
The faint screams of the arches
The mountain forks, all pointing at me

Red flashes. I'm hanging dry,
Liquor to my lips
Smoke-scarred lungs
The Devil's on the Speedometer
He's laughing at me

Crying over 90
Speed up around the bend
Go piling into the safety
Flip out into the night
Like a bat with wings, I'll soar
The bitterest taste;
My mother's eyes, reflected back at me
The scorn on her face. The disappointment

Let me die,
Let me die.

Today I had a rare experience, an understanding, sitting there under the shade. My fingers shaking from too much liquor. The pain in my right hand. The awkward twitch in my right bicep. ... I had this whisper. This inclination. Bass was playing. Guitar. A Christian voice, calling out to my soul. It was saying, "Pain is pleasure." That I make a myth of my own suffering. Like a hot knife along my own skin. Maybe I hadn't realised. The more I write, the more I fade. Cutting away the pieces of me. Literature that never gets read.

No Ashley. No Ashley.

God; I miss you. You were my love.

You were my love.

You were; and now you are gone, and I have never, ever moved on.

I had five minutes to make an impression.

In five minutes, this song would be over, and she’d walk out.

So, I walked in. Met her eyes. And started walking towards her, all without looking away.

I passed by others, slipped around them as they looked at me from the corners of their eyes. Interested.

When some guy stepped in front of her, she stepped aside, so that our eye contact wouldn’t break.

She had her lips parted. Her eyes were busy trying to get hold of me.

The tempo caresses my senses; and hers.

I was almost there.
Closer, closer.
Then--

He had to be there.
That guy.

Him. In his dark suit and open collar, with his dark eyes and sharp, elegant smile.
Smooth, subtle, sexy. Standing up on the balcony, watching us.

Fuck him.
I wanted her so bad.

She was everything I’d been searching for.
Everything I needed.

Shaking her hips from side to side, rocking them in time with the beat.
Making me do things I shouldn’t. My hips in time with the beat.
Her notes, making me linger.
My voice high-strung as I called out to her, aware I could’ve been caught.
My eyes flicking upwards dangerously, wary of the balcony.

I sat on it. That scared, anxious feeling.
Then, I let it ride. And threw myself at her.

She caught me mid-step and gasped. Her eyes locked on mine as I turned her my way.
A nervous flutter escaped her, caused by my wickedness; and my stupidity.

‘’You can’t just--,’’ She said, rolling with the wave.

‘’Not here! He’ll-,’’ She threw a glance at the balcony.

‘’Wow…” Her body moving from side to side, saying its first hello.

She turned around and backed up against me. Then, she gave me a certain look over her shoulder.

I put my brow against hers, and she closed her eyes. The scent pulled me in, and the warmth of her skin had my mind doing somersaults.

My hands went for her hips--, and I meant to say something good, but--,

The song ended.

And the whole club opened up and the lights came on and everyone stood looking at us, backing away.

The guy on the balcony with the sharp smile and the dark suit was staring down at me, not smiling.

He pointed a single finger in my direction, then said in the clearest tone I’d heard since I’d told myself to ‘take my chances:’

‘’That guy. Bring me that guy.’’

I wasn’t surprised. She was his, after all.

I let her go, gave her one last look, did something I shouldn't, then hurried out of the venue, my cheek still stinging from the slap.

I thought I saw her staring at me as I went out the back door, her hand still touching her mouth where I’d landed the kiss.

I suppose I should've known I'd pay for that....

I spend every day blocking out your light,
You are gone; you are faded; you have gone away...

So I spend my nights alone, drinking from the same cup
A cigarette in my mouth, trying to organise my thoughts.

Love. I was told it was a mystery
That it was eternal, sacred
That with the right love, you could be fulfilled:

Why was it all a lie?
Why have you gone away...?

It's like this, night after night;
The same piano keys. The same song
A life in refrain;
I can't move on. I can't fight this shelter, my grave.

I ask you now, dark angel
Look at me with mercy
Remember my name...
The words I once spoke to you in hushed whispers, genuine, unhindered by the lack of love, unbothered by lust, sworn in trust:

I promised myself to you at first sight,
We were bound, now broken, left to rot.
But it needn't be this way:
Do you remember my voice? Resurrection...
Have I not already lifted you out of your grave?
Have I not filled you with my light and sheltered you from dismay?
You are my angel, black or white
I bleed for you // no matter the cause, each and every day
To me, it doesn't matter if you fail
It does not matter how many pieces chip and fade
You are the air that I breathe; and I don't mean to use the age-old cliché,
But to me you are light, and life, and fire
So caress my soul. Shelter me in your dark energy,
I will myself to you. I give myself to you. I slit my throat to beg a rest,
From the demon of not living without you
Your only mistake is denial, of not telling me it's over
Shackled, I can't get free. I beg a whisper from thee...

So tell me, Ashley...

How does it end?

They called me "Crystal Child,"
"Gifted," "Special;"
Like I carried the weight of the world with me...

In my youth, I played between the trees,
My feet running over grass, dipping my toes in swamps
Digging up earthroots, speaking to worms
I lived inside the Heart Tree. It knew my name
I was the boroughs and the canopies
I was the song, every branch was pointed at me.

But now the sun falls to the bitterest shade,
The darkness spreads through the leaves, turning them grey
My name falls from the lips of the Dryads and the Fae
Accusations run wild. I am no longer a part of their plan
I am traitor, betrayer, the woods themselves don't care for me...

God: What did I do so wrong?
I don't know. I can't see
I am blindfolded, ignorant to my own lies
I try my best, and always fall short of your plan....

I beg of you: Let me dream.

Let me dream of running through forests again,
Let me get in touch with your plan. The veins of the trees
Whispering collectively to me. The wolves in the glen
I need to feel your touch again,
Otherwise I'll
Drown, drown, drown
Crushed by the Maker's plan
I'll drown, drown drown
Drown: In the maker's plan
This can't be my hell
A denial of everything that made me whole
A refusal, a lock, purgatory...
Please. Breathe into me again
Lift my body up, reignite my soul
Remind me of what made me feel so whole
God, I know you hear me, so:

Release me from my pain,
Remind me of the golden thread
And breathe into me again...

Who am I but your monster?

You press me and press me, barking at me for an answer. Always cross. Always plunging the dagger into my skin. Hasn't it ever occurred to you that there's a possibility that you might be attracted to me? That you're in love with the way I tell you "no" and to "stop your constant dwelling and infuriatingly unwarranted accusations...?"

Don't you remember the time when you scorned your governess and made her feel small? And I came over to the carriage in my leather gloves and all my person and took your hand from the window and turned you to face me? And I told you that what you had done was not good or righteous or well-done at all? The look on your face, the sulk and the tears. It drove a blade right through me. I felt cold and guilty and angry with you all at once. And I knew from then I loved you. Perhaps I did not say it, but I knew I had transitioned then from a friend and a brother into something more.

It is your silence that grabs me. Your games that grab me. How you gossip with your friends and do your private studies in the garden. How you walk by me and ask for one of my cigarettes and wait for me to light it for you. How you hold it at odds with your person as you study the windows and consider what Mrs. Bennet might be doing with that man who came to visit yesterday, and if they're already having an affair with one another and how good it must be for them. And how you look away from me dismissively and continue on your route. The same conversation could be had with you giggling like a child with your finger between your teeth. It varies from person to person, your moods everchanging, the twinkle in your eye darkening, the fabric on your thighs shifting from barest silk to darkest nylon. I want to run my fingers across you. Your indifference--that's what pains me.

So as you walk now into the parlour and settle down beside me and ask why I took your friend out dancing I say, "why not."

And when you say "well, why should you? If only to mock her--" I interrupt you and say: "Why not?"

And as you stand and rave and shout and say that it was not good at all of me to get her hopes up only to make me throw myself up out of my chair and demand why I should not dance with her, the look in your eyes tells me all I need to know. That you are jealous. That you do not know you are jealous and that you act on your own authority out of mistaken concern, when actually all you wish to decree is that you wish we could've danced together instead.

But you do not ask. And your eyes are filled with lead. And then I must tell you I only danced with her because one of the other gentlemen snubbed her and I would not see her embarrassed in public, and that's that, and if you wish to have such a conversation with me, it can be done far better. Thus I bid you good-day. And as I walk out, I sense the hesitation and small tremble of your lip as you stare at the back of my shoulder blades.

And I know you wish to say sorry, but you are too proud.

I swear, this will be the death of us both.

What fated look,
In ill-abashed sympathy
Causes the restlessness between us?

The caress of the frill,
Your hand that crosses mine, too warm
Descends into coldness at the mutter of a line

Dismissed to your room,
Restless, you think of me
Staring at the nakedness of the angel in oil

Thus I descend: my truth,
Pressed upon thine lips
A stillness in wait, a promise too certain to unfold

The final clutch. Your fingers grazing mine
Plead for a breath,
The latitude of a kiss.

Pain. It is pain that shatters the mind

There is mystery in the hedge maze,
In the dull upholstery and frayed edges of this ancient house,
Of the rows of dark oak and greased willows that drive up from the river,
Cusping upon the bridge and the old wooden door.

A fine young woman walks the alleys,
Through the avenues, hands upon her hips,
Bodice holding her all-in; a dress not too fine, more grey than blue
The house whispers, as she whispers, in the aches of her own mind.

A governess, who knows that
To love is to lose and risk pain again
To die and wilt like the cull of sun-bleached roses.

She circles these woods, dark as they are
Recalling how he first fell off his horse
Unaware of the creature held within his cellar,
Tended to and loved, sharing none of his hope
"My own demon," kept trapped, the incineration of his very standing
Morals lost, thoughts decayed, trapped within the walls of his estate.

What truth has he to tell her,
What gifts can he manifest?
While the demon yet lingers
As he holds his new wife to his chest
Rot becomes the sanctity of his mind
Escape impossible. Amnesia brought on by laudanum
Taken like whiskey, stealing the breath

At night he dreams of setting the tapestries alight,
Of digging an early grave for them both
Somewhere deep, earthworms cower
Listening to his mistresses cries
For she found the door to his private sanctum
And saw the truth in his first wife's eyes:
The madness yet lingers, and whether it's his fault is the question

Who is Rochester...? And what if he lies...?