A soft and sudden flicker of warm candlelight bade me wake, and I knew the wandering hag-ghost was haunting my halls. Every Blood Moon she comes, hooded and hungry for the spice of my human arrogance, skull-faced with bare jawbone dripping, cavernous eye sockets sucking me from my dreams like twin black holes pulsing dead-center in the wild womb of the world. I no longer fear her, this fleshless creature who eats my certainty, who drags her frozen fingerbones down my cheek and tightens her grip around my neck, who steals my breath for a moment before blessing me with her arrhythmic dance.
I used to shudder at the sound of her joints clacking and creaking. I used to turn away from her erratic twirls and her lopsided leaps, but now I hold her candle for her while she hisses and crashes about my house. There is a curious humor to her, you see, and she dances to remind me how feeble this flesh of mine is. She, this Lady Death, prances about with a spritely grace, animated by an electric innocence that comes only after the final initiation, and I know so soon I will be her. So soon my heartbeat will fall silent and still, and this lusty witch-body I call home will go dry for good. I shall become phantom, and the waters of my blood will drain into the mud.
May you live better for having witnessed the silly spiral of my bones, she speaks wordlessly, pulling the last of her brittle hairs from her bald crown and sprinkling them atop my shoulders.
May you be full of faith in the merit of your feeling tongue and lap up all things bitter and sweet while you still can. She sputters and spits a sour spray in my direction, blessing me with rot and bidding me fall to my knees.
May you trust in your creaturely nature as much as your enduring soul, for that body of yours will be wanting the ground soon enough. She falls heavy into a heap of still and stained ivory, and I take her cold skull and broken ribcage onto my lap. So slowly I rock, I hum, soothing the wretch I will be like a long-breasted crone would her grand-babe, and I seal our annual midnight ritual with a vow to be dreamt so vibrantly alive again and again and again, to weave my warm skin-wrapped limbs together with the bone pile, to be a handsewn work of art born from the beauty of feeling flesh ceremoniously braided with the promise of my own demise, and to be made better for having watched death dance once more under this moon of blood.
-
A soft and sudden flicker of warm candlelight bade me wake, and I knew the wandering hag-ghost was haunting my halls. Every Blood Moon she comes, hooded and hungry for the spice of my human arrogance, skull-faced with bare jawbone dripping, cavernous eye sockets sucking me from my dreams like twin black holes pulsing dead-center […] -
A soft and sudden flicker of warm candlelight bade me wake, and I knew the wandering hag-ghost was haunting my halls. Every Blood Moon she comes, hooded and hungry for the spice of my human arrogance, skull-faced with bare jawbone dripping, cavernous eye sockets sucking me from my dreams like twin black holes pulsing dead-center […] -
A soft and sudden flicker of warm candlelight bade me wake, and I knew the wandering hag-ghost was haunting my halls. Every Blood Moon she comes, hooded and hungry for the spice of my human arrogance, skull-faced with bare jawbone dripping, cavernous eye sockets sucking me from my dreams like twin black holes pulsing dead-center […]
-
A soft and sudden flicker of warm candlelight bade me wake, and I knew the wandering hag-ghost was haunting my halls. Every Blood Moon she comes, hooded and hungry for the spice of my human arrogance, skull-faced with bare jawbone dripping, cavernous eye sockets sucking me from my dreams like twin black holes pulsing dead-center […] -
A soft and sudden flicker of warm candlelight bade me wake, and I knew the wandering hag-ghost was haunting my halls. Every Blood Moon she comes, hooded and hungry for the spice of my human arrogance, skull-faced with bare jawbone dripping, cavernous eye sockets sucking me from my dreams like twin black holes pulsing dead-center […]
NO COMMENT