Izar. d2. fin.

lucius branwen / 10 — fox Graphics 1,477 POSTS Pronouns: she/her Member is Online but a butt ?	Izar. d2. fin. Jun 22, 2015 1:09:16 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by lucius branwen / 10 — fox on Jun 22, 2015 1:09:16 GMT -5 Iz Stephens//18//M//D2 odair
	Last Edit: Jul 3, 2015 10:59:16 GMT -5 by lucius branwen / 10 — fox

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Izar. d2. fin. Jun 22, 2015 2:31:04 GMT -5

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Post by lucius branwen / 10 — fox on Jun 22, 2015 2:31:04 GMT -5

I z a r.

I.

Zero
is the final point
where you cease to
exist

the point of which
you are now
t h i n
enough
that it no longer matters if
you aren’t smart,
or strong,
or beautiful
or worthy

or anything at all.

A point
where
you can be nothing
and
feel nothing.

And
I like this –

this feeling
of being hollow,
the feeling of
hunger ringing out my insides,
gently suckling at the folds of my stomach
as vibrations echo off
and power
my beating breath,

void of sin,
emptied of beasts.

Hunger
serves as a reminder of what
it could feel like
to be
zero,

a reminder
of how much
I have left
to fix, to change –

to lose
and
to gain

Twenty-eight inches:
Bones and muscle.

(I am almost there.)

II.

“I’ve missed you, Luce,” she says,
and she puts a gentle hand
on my cheek.
“Look how big you’ve grown.”

My mother always loved my face best.

She dressed it up
in the warmth of a
limelight,
features graced
with the glow of her pride,
and the touch of her praise,
and the feel of her pulse.

(It’s my veins that made up the
seams
of her mask.
It's my veins that
are now
threadbare,
worn to the
cells.)

But she was something constructed from glass,
poised like a figurine,
spun from
crystal:
too brittle to hold,
too fragile to hug.
A hand on my cheek
was all she could ever give.

She looks at me now,
and I can see death turning
her skin translucent,
blood and bones
nearly visible,

her faith
spiderwebs
towards delicate
and frail.

I don’t speak a word,
but I hold her hand
to my cheek.

My mother always loved my face
best,
my fingerprints
cut bloody and broken
from her touch,

my body melded
to the flow
of her love.

(But not love.)
I never meant much,
to her
underneath
this skin.

Her heart belongs to
Luce.

Always, Luce.

Because I was pretty,
and I was azure-eyed
and I was skinny.
but I was never hers.

She holds my cheek now,
looking for Lucem,
and I hold her hand,
looking for
z e r o.

III.

I've never met
my brother,
never seen Luce in the flesh
or known the person
that stirs Leviathan in me -

a sinking sin
that eats
away
at the shores
of my organs.

I've never known him,
but there are photographs
of when he was fifteen,
crystallized
in a halo of light,
with a name that means more
than I could ever be,

(my mother
and father
holds
his
radiance
in each
black and white image,
pinned up in time.
I was never
his incandescence,
never his
beauty.)

I studied those photos,
for days on end,
searched for myself
in the curve of his jaw,
and line of his nose,
the lift of his cheeks,

just
looking
for the shadows
of a lost boy
in
me.

I wear my hair like he did,
neatly
with the strands
pushed back,
balanced
like feathers in flight.
I wear my clothes like he did,
a collection
of colourful threads,
and mix-matched costumes
pulled off
effortlessly.

But I look in
the mirror,
and I don't see
Luce,

and I don't like
the reflection
that stares back,
glass cracked
distorted by faults
of
an embryonically
failed proxy.
a poor successor,
a parody
piece of Lucem,

flawed,
trash,
disposable.

I look in the mirror,
and my face crumbles,
sharp features
weathering
to dust.

To evanescence,
it falls
from my bones,
leaving fissures
between
my eyes,
and my nose,
and my lips,

broken.
BRO K E N

The monster rises
from my stomach,
roars and writhes,
howling as it swells
red
then
green
then
b l a c k.

Leviathan wakes,
and I turn to
the toilet.

IV.

My belly empties
into the chasm,
and falls from my mouth
in a kaleidoscopic
stream,
as
liberation
on a tongue.

And in a moment,
the water carries
its contents down
a drain pipe,
washing
away
everything
wicked
inside.

The beast
purrs
quietly;
the wave of
nausea
calms.

And –

I feel lighter,
closer to grace,
closer to zero.

A vacuum
pulses
in my
abdomen,
and
finds its appetite
in the cage
of my chest.

(I can feel the room spin,
underneath my feet.)

My eyes
catch on the mirror,
and
I stare
at the ridges
raised by needles.

My face is stitched
carelessly back
again –
an ugly work
of sloppy
lines
that's
just barely
whole,
just
barely human,
just –

The beast hums softly,
and slinks
into
my throat.

I think about
the insect
bloated
in my mother's
brain,
I think about
the ghost of my father's
hands around
my neck,
and I think about
Lucem,
lost in the streets
of our district,
a past that haunts
each echo
I walk.

I look in the mirror,
thinking
about
zero.

(and I can feel
hunger.)

Last Edit: Jul 3, 2015 10:57:37 GMT -5 by lucius branwen / 10 — fox

lucius branwen / 10 — fox Graphics 1,477 POSTS Pronouns: she/her Member is Online but a butt ?	Izar. d2. fin. Jul 3, 2015 10:59:41 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by lucius branwen / 10 — fox on Jul 3, 2015 10:59:41 GMT -5 da-done whoopyah.

sbeeg Retired Staff 3,503 POSTS Pronouns: she/they last seen Nov 1, 2023 5:54:37 GMT -5	Izar. d2. fin. Jul 3, 2015 14:36:35 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by sbeeg on Jul 3, 2015 14:36:35 GMT -5 Wow. Just wow. Great work^^ Accepted!