elliler.

Ten points for execution.
The motions are performed perfectly.
Definitely an A in Determination and Composure.
The sad smile is a nice touch, too.

Not a hair out of place, she checks off her lists methodically.
It doesn’t make the rainbows on her arms fade any faster.
In quiet defiance, she begins wearing pearls in matching colors.
Acceptance can be beautiful.

It’s the small victories.

The drone of the vacuum is no engine snarl,
but it gets the job done.
She hangs a speedometer above her bed by way of substitute.

Days go in, and then out again.
Perfectly.
Of course.

Now, if it weren’t for that pesky, gnawing hole somewhere around her middle...

sottosopra.

She’s grabbing at straws.
M.P. knows this.
The knowledge just makes her cling on all the more frantically.

Her eyes wild, she searches room after room for a solution.
Doors slam, pigeons flutter hastily to quieter trees.

‘It’s all for naught, it’s all for naught, it’s all for naught.’

Who says pigeons can’t talk?

Meanwhile, the chicken of the sky is doing what she does best.
She’s a hollow little hen, too frail for flight, always nesting where she oughtn’t.
Birds never learn.

(It’s twelve o’clock midnight and all is not well.)

Tired of roosting, merely existing, one day she joins the cockfights.

aithiompaithe.

The tide rises; the tide falls.

He’s close to the surface.
She can feel it.

His call, his pull-
They’re drifting over the water to where she stands on the shore.

Alternately churning and too peaceful, the waves contract and release in a mirror image of the thing in her chest.
She clutches at her heart and stares mutely at the simile before her.

The streets are silent; the docks are empty.
A seafaring town can always smell a storm a mile away.
Old habits die hard.
Some habits don’t die.
Dead habits return.

She closes her eyes, in equal parts pain and pleasure.

Soon.
It will be very soon.

The tide rises; the tide falls.

muoto.

The Mistress can’t remember the safe word. 

It’s kind of a problem.
This is no time for short-term memory loss.

Amnesia is so unhelpful.
God damn PTSD.

She edges away from Dr. Physician.

The ones who help are synonymous with the ones who hurt.
[an unfortunate truth]

“This can’t go on.”

^if only the courage existed.
Till then, wishful thinking/pipe dream.

The fun part?
Guessing which is which.

soru.

Grier stands center stage.
No costume, no props, no pretense.
Bare concrete, without curtains to close.

Motivation: none.
Objective: honesty.
Medium: simplicity.

His eyes bore into his audience, searing her to the core in the best of ways.
There’s no bolting from this, no hiding.
It’s in everything.
It is everything.
Has become, will become
Everything.

The word is ‘all-encompassing.’

Palms up, open.
Perfect imagery.
The time has come.
Uncover your eyes, now.
You knew this was coming.

Quietly, 
loudly, 
spoken:

The question.

“What void are you trying to fill? What blemish are you trying to cover? What answer do you seek? What, exactly, are you aching for? Do you know?”

She shakes.
She shudders.
She shivers.
She seizes.

She doesn’t.

Does he?

virvel.

There’s an awful case of identity crisis going around the Neighborhood- no one is safe. 

Neither M.P. nor The Rolling Thunder are sure which of them is which anymore.
It hardly matters; both are disengaging. 

The Mistress and ESquared are in cahoots.
Enna’s running the show, Elsie’s calling the shots, and The Mistress sticks to cowering in corners and waiting to be called on.

She haunts the halls while Dr. Physician practices his practice, breaking habits & breaking hearts. 

Also: somone’s been trying to resurrect The Master.
Imhotep-style.
Everyone’s more than a little worried.
Voodoo is almost always cause for concern.

crivo.

Honora commences stumbling home; it seems to be a developing theme.

Dr. Physician resolves to keep an eye on it.
The woman is not unlike a vacuum. 

Stumble.

She needs to find the brakes; she needs to locate her lungs and recall how to breathe.

“The air was thick with false starts and dead ends. She never finished what she began, everyone knew this. The pervasive humidity was drawing to a point, and it would soon rain down insecurities. Fortified by the poisonous precipitation, complications would begin to push through the arid soil, reaching their grotesque appendages toward the acid sky.”

She stares intently at the page.
The combinations and arrangements of letters don’t make sense to her.
Yet.

She’ll study and scrutinize until they do.

Until then, shadows in the corner,
always shadows in the cupboards.