Immolations and sacrificial rites slaughtered a reign of perseverance, conquered and relinquished the burnt offerings of a harpsichord essence, strung and stung divine, stalwart beliefs until valorous efforts were choked, smothered and strangled under the heavy weight of arduous culminations, demonic precipices, infernal decadences. An embrace of the wicked, the potent, the maligned, taken with open arms, with barbaric turns, with savage hands and villainous stones. Lena had driven her heart into another discordant score, unwound all the intertwining taffeta, all the scintillating finery, all the raw warmth, and allowed her body to be kindled, incensed, into the pernicious, treacherous onslaught of licentious creeds, of immoral sentiments. Benevolence twisted, compassion distorted, beneficence destroyed, thrown into the Tartarean fires, scalding the inner sanctity of her carefully built serenity, of her alms and balms of tranquility, of all the brilliant, tender candor she’d meticulously created and entwined. In a matter of moments, she’d ruined all her worn, affectionate armor, tossed it into the brutal, ferocious songs of war drums, of heated, barbaric munitions, squandered and wasted years of grandeur for the touch, the taste, the relish of insurrection, battle, blades, rapiers and cutlasses, knotted coils of an indulgent, impulsive dominance, severing superiority. And wasn’t it wondrous, to encompass the indignation, the exasperation, the rage and fury, channel the ardency of her motions and movements into insurrection, to unleash every fiber of her being, so locked, so chained, fettered and broken from the oubliette of all her frayed designs? She’d concocted schemes to annihilate, she’d rendered assaults and sieges, she’d become a ghost, a wraith, to unravel the livelihood of their enemies, and selfishly, horribly, abominably, offered another into the fray, watched as the heresy of her crimes attached to her friend, her companion, her beloved. Gone had been the harmony, the rapture, the reverie, and only the unholy barbs and shambles to take its place, ravenous, raptorial, a picture of everything she’d never wanted to be, the pieces and remnants she’d hidden her mind, her frame, her existence from, torched on a feverish pyre of ire, of wrath. Nefarious depths revisited, eternally puncturing and lacing her into the capable, the fierce, the enigmatic dominions; kind masks and sympathetic ears, easily ripping open their love, their generosity, for the fiendish, for the damned. Once melodious, now fractured, splintered, broken tirades of liberation, aspirations and ambitions, the stalwart songs casting dimming shades, tumultuous, turmoil requiems.

Did she merely live a lie now? Were the grins mercurial folly? Were the smiles capricious whimsy? Were all the endless, eternal giggles and delights scorched, buried in the designs of absorbed sentiments, halo slipped and fashioned into a noose? Had she always been a malicious juncture in the sea of familiar faces, waiting the right moment to untangle from all the salvations, all the sanguine shades, all the strength and good will? Had she always been a monster, searching the earth for the right victim, the moment to shed bliss, to forgo hums and hymns, to be an arcane, rotten, withering shell? What had been the purpose of her provisions, of her gifts, of all the well wishes, all the sanguine sanctuaries she’d allured, beguiled and enchanted? Was the bloom off the rose, petals plucked and fallen, scattered across the runes of all her glorious days spent beneath the dawn, the dusk, the horizon of a world’s edge, the auspicious glamor of satin peaks? Had the floret waned, crumbled and crumpled, withered deep into the arches of the sinister earth, just as deceitful and specious as thorns? And, after the dust cleared and the ash settled, what had it all been for? For victory, for conquest, for triumph over those who’d tarnished them time and time again, or for the mother, the children, still lying in their prison?

The nymph slid into the waves and felt the water crash into her chest, the liquid lap at her limbs, ricochet off her skin, sketch over the mahogany, honeyed blends, and pondered if she deserved more pain, more anguish, more torment from its brutal assault. Each powerful torrent stung, pricked, goaded and pleaded as she marched into the sea, as she opened her gaze to the widening expanse of darkness, gloom and terror, if each day was to be like the last, rippling over her frame as a dire, disastrous lament, constantly consuming, reminding, devouring dulcet lullabies, angelic bliss, satin intrigues and curiosities, the idle, blessed moments of repose. Invoked and inspired by the damnation of her soul, she whispered a continuous dirge, floating over the brine, over the currents, over the streamlined bouts of domination and supremacy, like bobbing notes in a bottle: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and they beat a steady monody in her head, carved a steady crescendo of all the platitudes she couldn’t voice, couldn’t thread, couldn’t deign to each and every soul she’d somehow sullied. Imogen, chirping for her on the dunes, selfless and strong, enduring and wonderful, courageous and brave, Kou, Sacre, Roux, the faces and features of undeserving captives, thrown to the brim of the terrain, unseen, unheard, and even for the unknown mare, whom she’d longed, yearned, desired to pummel and destroy. Reviling revelations, barbarous incantations, treachery dabbling over the mist, and her features held each lasting covenant of her struggles, of her heartache, of her disgust and repulsion of her own soul. Where did she go from here? How did she mend her ways? Were they past repair and resolution, too dampened and fettered, too cracked and dismantled, too abandoned and maligned to justify restoration? Lena closed her eyes, crooned and begged into the surf, permitted the influence of the waves to tangle its authority, its might, its strength, into her soul, asked for deliverance and was assured it wouldn’t come. Swept away and stolen, encased in the inner sanctum of brutality, of pretense and chicanery, without the ropes, the steps, the tools, to pull herself out; stuck in the boundaries of hell and heaven, purgatory drenched in ethereal rhapsody.

The songbird raised her face as the sun rose, and wondered if it thought to burn her alive.

@[Kirottu]