malisbutterflies

[malisbutterflies]

Silence bears heavy on my mind, a crushing press smothering my face into an unrecognizable mush.

It bares its crooked teeth, wielding a dull ax, and hacks away at my skull, chipping off pieces of bone, ricocheting off the wall, painting it in splatters of crimson despair.

[malisbutterflies]

Sunlight drenched me in its vermillion nectar, photons dancing along my skin and slipping into my pupils like little grains of gold scattered in a riverbed. It poured through me, filling every crevice, every hollow, until liquid gold quenched the thirst that cracked open in my chest like a dry soil desperate for a trickle of rain. Warmth seeped deeper, softening jagged edges, binding fragments into something partially whole. And as a beam of light shot through my chest, I understood: love is this.

Love is a river soaking into trembling earth. Love is a light that draws leaves into it, like pilgrims drawn to the divine.

Love resides, love belongs, love breathes. Love is anything.

But alas, love is but enough.

[malisbutterflies]

Sandy Linter & Gia Carangi by Chris von Wangenheim (1978)

[malisbutterflies]

Love sinks its fangs into my neck, siphoning life in small, inexorable bites. Blood dribbles down my collarbone, staining my blueing, cyanotic skin with deep, spreading crimson. My muscles surrender, crystallizing into a malleable stone. My pupils dilate—a desperate attempt to catch every frail ray of light that dances off your skin. A grey sheen glistens over my irises, like a mold creeping through damp flesh. Your fingerprints leave deep imprints in my edematous, bruised skin.

[malisbutterflies]

Eight frail limbs crawl in my chest, spinning aching webs of silk across my ribs.

How I pine to no longer live haunted by the guttural ghost of loneliness.

[malisbutterflies]

I surrender my body to the earth, and I surrender my heart to you. Knowing, seeing all that you have done with it. You ripped my heart into shreds with every backwards step. I felt it bursting into flames in your relentless grip as you pulled apart each fibre from its cast; as you discarded of the waste with a flick of your wrist. In your eyes, I am nothing—nothing but an unwanted, fragile lump of flesh left behind like an unclaimed inheritance.

Still, it is yours to keep, yours to fumble, yours to shred. Do with it as you please, for your name is carved so deeply into its core, not even the strongest of sorcerers could erase the scars you’ve left upon its walls. So please, by all means, take my heart. Take it and plaster it upon your wall, and may it serve as a crude reminder of me in every frantic passing. May it be an unrelenting curse upon you and your lovers. Throw it away, bury it, burn it if you wish—but may the hex follow you down to your grave. The same grave where my body decays, wrapped in the embrace of snakes and maggots, a grave where I’ve hollowed a space in my chest just for you.

[malisbutterflies]

the holy trinity: the father (fuck it we ball) the son (it is what it is) the holy spirit (to be cringe is to be free)

[malisbutterflies]

And if God won’t listen, maybe the Devil will.

[malisbutterflies]

love calls you to this knife/ for love for love

Lucille Clifton, "lumpectomy eve" from How to Carry Water

[malisbutterflies]

Love has left me in a trench, clawing at the earth to escape.

Love has left me with chemical burns, searing through flesh in plumes of fumes.

Love has left me with broken skin, tender and raw.

Love is my urge, even as it scars.

[malisbutterflies]

tw

There’s nothing left to do. I’ve numbed myself with everything I can. There’s nothing left but that—

My bad habit.

But I will not spiral. I will not spiral. I will not spiral.

I can’t spiral.

And yet I ache. I ache, a hollow thrum beneath my skin, craving something sharp to slice through the pure, unadulterated melancholy. I ache to see my pain take shape, to wear it on my skin like bruises, each mark a silent confession.

Anything to prove what I’m feeling is real. Evidence.

It’s all too much. Too much to silence, too much to carry, too much to breathe through.

I want to see blood.

[malisbutterflies]

Salt in the wound. Sprinkle it ever so gingerly. Such a saint you are, letting me down gently. Send my nerves spiralling into a frenzy of impulse and agony. Sizzling and short-circuiting like a frayed wire, your words drip saccharine like honey. Soak into me, like acid searing through my veins. Slow breaths rattle my chest like the bars of a prison cell. Shadows slither in, suffocating any crack of sunlight.

[malisbutterflies]

Intruder

There’s an intruder in my house. A guest who has overstayed his welcome—a nomad who made his home in the walls of my heart. He lingers in the corner, sending a cold draft into the room that makes the hairs on my arm stand on end.

When he first knocked on my door, I welcomed him, in the hopes his presence might fill the silence. I opened my door wide, folded him into my embrace, and fed him the finest food. Every night, I tucked him into my soft bed. We lived together well; he did the chores, and I would come home to washed dishes, folded clothes, and warm cream soup. I enjoyed his quiet company.

But some days, I brought home a friend. And on those days, his face hardened. Cracks crawled across his stony expression, and the longer I lingered, the faster they broke through his facade. His glare stole my breath, forcing me to send my friends away. When they left, it felt like something inside me left with them—something I couldn't get back. And each time it happened, the empty spaces grew larger, and he settled deeper into the cracks they left behind. And as the door clicked shut, blood seeped back into his face and the stone melted away. With a twisted smile—almost a frown stretched by crooked teeth—he welcomed me back, and a sinister relief crept through me, and I let out a ragged exhale. I could breathe again.

I soon learned that in this home, it was just him and me. And as long as he remained, nobody else was allowed to enter.

As the days slipped by, I would open the door to see his welcoming grimace, until the dishes were no longer done, my clothes piled up unclean, and the soup grew cold. My guest sat hunched in the corner, his emaciated frame radiating a misery that penetrated my bones. He was always there, but never close enough. Even when he sat beside me, he remained a stranger. I could talk to him, but my words evaporated into silence, caught between us like smoke that never clears. At first, I thought his company would be enough—a dull ache was better than nothing. But as the days stretched on, I realized that the ache had only numbed me further, growing quieter, but deeper.

I often went out for walks in my mind, stepping over cracked pavement and rubble. The wind whistled, whipping the yellowing leaves from skeletal trees, the sky ashen and sunless. Always cold, always gray. Still, I kept walking. Anything to escape him.

Tonight, he decides to throw a party in my absence—a pity party for one.

It’s foggy tonight. I tread the fractured path, a flickering flashlight trembling in my hands. Somewhere behind me, I hear the door to my heart click shut.

Inside, my guest prepares for his ritual. Mirrors line the walls, and buckets of crimson paint wait at his feet. An ancient gramophone spins a broken record, lying on cracked tiles. He dresses himself in pristine white.

Low-pitched whines crawl from the mist into my ribcage, vibrating through my chest. The fog wrapped tighter around me with every step, a damp shroud that smothered the air from my lungs. It pulled at my limbs, as if trying to pull me back—to him. The wind slams against my body, weighing down my steps.

In the room, my frail guest revolves mournfully around the source of sound. He slaps his gaunt feet, slowly at first, against the floor. In his sorrowful ritual, he clutches a bucket in one withered hand, and dips the other in the crimson paint. With flicks of his bony wrist, he splatters the mirrors, crimson streaks dripping down like veins. The paint outlines his figure, a distorted reflection in every pane.

And as he lurches around the room, a violin wails, rising in a maddening crescendo. Guttural groans echo against the thin walls. Drums clash. His feet scuff against the floor, each step heavier, more frantic. His pounding grows vigorous, surprisingly brawny for his flimsy frame. His red-streaked arm flails, smearing colour along the mirrors.

Far away, the violin shrieks in agony, its shrill screams circulating the vessel, and drilling into my mind. The ache inside me bores into my eardrums, sharp and relentless. The ground shakes, sending my heart floundering. I shut my eyes, and clutch my chest. My nails sink into skin, as I fight for breath.

My guest descends into a wild mania, hurling the buckets of blood-red paint against the reflecting walls. The high-pitched notes of the violin screech, and, cracks spiderweb across the glass until it shatters, splintering with a violent crash. Jagged shards scatter across the room. The strings let out one last tortured cry before snapping with a sharp twang. And just like that, the room plunges into an eerie silence.

Fractures of glass litter the ground of the room, each piece a broken reflection of myself. My distorted features stare back at me from every angle, forlorn and despondent. The lightbulbs overhead spew out aggressively fluorescent light across the wreckage. The blood-red sheen of the glass glows faintly under the glare, as the heavy, metallic scent of rotting blood hangs in the air.

He settles his way back into his corner, shrinking into the darkness, no longer taking up space; just watching me, always watching. Our eyes meet for a fleeting moment, and I muster a brittle smile. It’s all I have left.

Slowly, I sink to the ground, and lay down over the shattered glass, and the shards bite into my skin, sharp and unforgiving. He glides over, steps ghostly and quiet, and spreads a tattered blanket over me. Its fabric is thin and frayed, and I’m still cold, but I can’t say anything. My eyelids grow heavy, and I let myself drift into a place far away.

I bleed into the quiet, and for just a moment, the broken pieces feel whole. The glass settles beneath my skin, and as sleep takes me, I know he'll be waiting when I wake—and somehow, that's enough.

[malisbutterflies]

one last prayer

Lord, I raise my hands up to you tonight, and I beg. I beg you to end this suffering, end this pining, end this yearning. If she is not meant to be mine, remove the love that nests in my chest. Remove the love that has made its home between my ribs. And if she is, bring her forth. Allow her to use the keys into the home I’ve made in my heart, just for her. Allow her to unpack her things, and make the place her own. But do not leave me shivering in this frigid room eternally, with nothing but the warmth of a flickering candlelight.

[malisbutterflies]

the last lemon

The autumn burns hues of vermillion and crimson into the fluttering leaves of the ancient lemon tree, drawing me in like Eve. My fingers wrap my hands around one last lemon, hanging ever so gingerly, its shiny skin reflecting yellow beams like it is its own sun emitting rays of light. Without pulling it off the stalk, I bring it to meet my nose, and the tantalizing scent of citrus fills me with a need for regeneration, for love, for her. I tug at the fruit, and pierce it with my fingers, and hold it above my head as its refreshing, tangy juice drips on my tongue, coating me in its sweet, acidic liquor. And the realization fills me with a distant yearning: loving a woman is this. Had Eve loved Ariel, the fruit of forbidden love would be the lemon.

[malisbutterflies]

The edge between emotion and expression is a blunt razor. I find myself here often, walking the flimsy border between the two, as hot steel wedges itself into the creases of my calloused feet. Dull as it may be, it inches its way deeper with every wobbling step, until my skin separates and gapes open over the blade. I continue to place one foot in front of the other with shivering legs, my arms floundering at my sides. Cold flesh melds into metal, swallowing it like a bitter red wine. Below, droplets of blood sizzle on the concrete, and the fear of meeting their fate coerces me to drive myself into the razor, until it shatters my brittle bones.

[malisbutterflies]

You have my heart on puppet strings. You tug and you tug, and I feel the strong layer of tissue covering my heart loosen into individual fibres with every tug. Like a pinch of the skin, you send agony through my nerves, and I feel the sac of fluid surrounding my heart rupture with one last singular pull. My heart rubs against my chest with every slow beat, every raggedy breath, and the friction within my chest is rug burn against my ribs. The fluid seeps into my chest, dampening my erratic heartbeat, like a hand silencing the mouth.