Elisabeth Writing

I wonder if I’ll ever stop looking over my shoulder, searching for the Huntsman on my trail. He wants to put my heart in a velvet lined box. I don’t know if these tired eyes and this worn smile can sway him; I am not the beauty they once called me, though I never believed their words anyway. Still – would he stop, struck by my green irises, filled with words and light? Would he collapse onto the ground and let me escape, not willing to cage my wildness? I don’t know. And so I keep running. 

When my stomach twists in knots at the thought of his hands on other curves, his lips tracing other lips, his eyes scanning the crowd for someone else; what does it mean? My imagination runs too wild, a stallion I was never able to break, though I’ve tried. I ended up being marked purple and blue, admiring the colors against the calla lily luminescence of my winter skin. No one can see them but me; deep beneath the tissue and organs, the words and images scrawled with horror, sadness, visions of mottled skies and the thunder of mocking laughter. I can lose myself here if I’m not careful, drawn by the sirens, becoming one myself. Have you ever eaten a heart for breakfast? Have you tasted bloody love in your mouth? Have you soaked your skin in a lover’s tears? Perhaps my fear is my own sins and failings. Or… 

I’d rather be alone than face a gaze that looked beyond me: for more, for another, for lightning. I won’t trail my ribbons around them, silken capture, if they seek freedom. And if your freedom is mine? Is with me? Let me bind your hands and drag my teeth down your lip; let me show you what faerie women feel like in the haze between two worlds; let me show you the swan arch of my neck, vulnerable to your wolfish teeth. I am heat and light, sensual leather and delicate lace, magick and a watercolor daydream, manic pixie and slumbering  flower. I wait, curled in green shoots and darkness, to feel the sun. 

I wake from nightmares with flames in my mouth, remembering the cage. How I flapped my wings until they were shreds of petals and color. I perched on the bar, singing a sad tune until my voice was a raspy thread; wondering about the sky, and if I’d ever see it again. I won’t put you in twisted metal, no matter how beautiful the iron roses shine. They still hurt when you try to get free, still dig into your skin with bloodlust, still smell metallic and not sweet.

My lover curls against me in stifled starlight, and my heart is a falcon, crying with joy as I make spirals in the sky. The right love is a kind of reckless freedom. But I still hear the Huntsman cracking twigs under his feet; I still remember the iron collar, making my Fey blood steam and scream; I still remember the island and the haunting sound of my own song.