Episode 100 – The Gift

At the top of a tower,
way up high,
a princess is tethered,
prepared to die.

Our hero, her sister,
fights demons below;
the Slayer they call her,
the ones in the know.

The enemy, a hell god
shut out of her world,
finds a key to re-enter –
a human, the girl.

The princess was ancient,
pure energy, the Key,
made human and grafted
to Slayer family tree.

Slayer swore to protect her,
little sister or not,
so she and the hell god
they battled and fought.

The hell god appears
as a beautiful girl,
strong and self-centered,
all darkness and curls.

This beast shares the body
of an innocent man;
it’s mostly his life,
she comes out when she can.

His weak human mind
drives the beast quite insane
so she sucks brains of others,
her composure regained.

These poor brain-sucked souls
see the Key in true form
and they lead the beast to her,
her sacrifice sworn.

Blood of the princess 
will split open the sky, 
unleashing demons and dragons,
then close when she dies.

The beast can slip back
through the crack to her realm,
leaving death and destruction
for everyone else.

A hell god disciple,
a small elf of a man,
pretends first to protect the girl, 
then slices her skin.

A knight charges to save her,
takes a knife in the side;
the elf throws him over,
though he’d already died.

For he was made vampire
when Victoria was queen;
he killed lots of people,
but is now pretty clean.

With a government inserted
device in his head,
he no longer harms humans,
fighting demons instead.

Helps the Slayer, can you imagine,
he’s killed two before,
but this one, she’s different;
her, he adores.

His love swings a hammer
at the beast’s curly head;
the beating leaves her human
but not really dead.

Our Slayer is a hero,
she’s not like you and me;
when the beast becomes a man again,
she has to let her be.

So a dark wizard takes the reins,
a Slayer mentor true,
and steals the hell god’s final breath;
he’s seen a rodeo or two.

The Slayer scales the tower,
kills the elf with one quick blow,
sees her sister bleeding,
the portal opening below.

The princess accepts that only she,
as Key, can save the world;
her death alone can stop 
what the hell beast has unfurled.

With dragons soaring overhead,
the Slayer remembers a truth:
that her blood and princess blood
are the same, she needs no proof.

So she kisses her little sister, 
and throws herself into the swirl;
her death closes the portal,
returning balance to the world.

    *  *  *

The knight and all who loved her
wept a hurricane that day,
for the Slayer, sister, hero
had forever gone away.

They laid her body in the ground
to rest in a hometown plot;
the inscription on her headstone read:  
She Saved The World

A Lot.

Episode 99 – The Weight of the World

I want to go home,
be a little girl 
again,
away from all this struggle,
see my mother,
see my father.  

A little girl again,
mud pies 
my only responsibility.
I want to go home.

Be their baby 
again,
held tightly 
in arms
that love me,

be protected 
from the pain of the world,
the smallest smudge
of guilt wiped clean.
I like it here
in the mind
of a child

where every day
I play.
Every day,
they love me.
As a child,
my life is sweet
like honeysuckle.

As an adult,
I wear this world
like a costume,
heavy and
tailored.

I want to go home 
again, 
be a little girl.

Episode 97 – Tough Love

Responsibility
lies like a child
in my belly.

Ripening fast.
Full of sorrow
and possibilities.

Am I good?
Gathering my potions
to save or destroy.

Feeding 
what can’t be fed.
Alone.

Heart in my hands.
Clutching, 
    clawing, 
crawling.

Down.
On my knees.
Blind and ashamed.

Shattered mirror 
of my mind.
Not enough to take me.

Episode 96 – Intervention

Did I tell her I loved her?
I was so young and the word love 
so ancient.

Across the fire, I see her face
in the desert that appears after death.

With feline grace, she guides me 
across the sands, to a place 
where love is tortured and I am exposed.

Rub salt in the wound.
Forgive the salt.
Love the salt.

Beauty cannot drag from me the truth.
The truth is love and love is pain.
Hold onto love.
Protect it from all enemies.

I won’t forget 
what you did 

for love.

Episode 95 – Forever

Tiny feet 
     walk on graves,
bring her back to me.

bone
     breath
flesh
    smile

If magic could return 
     her to this world,
would I cast that spell?

Or can I believe
she has lived 
her life and moved on
to other obligations,
leaving me
to find a way 
to walk the earth
without her?

It’s okay to cry
     and cry
and cry

because without her
     all I am 
is tears.

Episode 94 – The Body

i breathe into her mouth
to bring life
as she once did for me
but she’s cold
like a lake in winter

    please don’t hurt her

how can she be my mother
one instant
and the next
just a body

* * *

Grief is silent.
Grief is screaming,
lying in swatches of color 
strewn around the room.

She will never 
breathe 
again

or, or 
brush her hair

or watch silly shows on television
or fix breakfast
or worry about her daughter.

She’s alone now.
In a room
where it’s okay
to be cold.

Her hair
lies in quiet curls
against her head.
Her eyes focused 
on family 
I can’t see.

The dark corridors 
of death 
are lined with
my shortcomings.

I am lost and alone
in the space
surrounding her
missing life.

Episode 93 – I Was Made to Love You

Real girls are spongy.

I bounce off them
and ricochet around the room,
leaving splats of color 
on the walls and the floors,

dripping 
oozing 
spilling

into crevices and corners,

finger painting
the imperfect lines of their bodies,
wiping off the colors
to reveal the skin beneath.

* * *

She was a robot 
for love.
A girl
made of bolts and screws.

The perfect woman.

Programmed to hug,
kiss and caress.
To always say yes 
to his every whim.

Built to love.
Built to cook.
No baggage.
No needs.
Just pure devotion.

Even that wasn’t enough.
Everything he wanted
wasn’t really what he wanted.

And everything she had to give
really wasn’t enough.

Episode 92 – Crush

I am blinded by your memory.
The waters sailed now make me seasick.

Do you think I like you in my heart,
gnawing holes until it hangs in lacy strings? 

Love is strangling me, like a madman in the night.
Like an arrow in my back, love attacks me.

You slam love in my face like a door
and I choose to believe it means you care.

I see you in blue, all soft around the edges.
In the end, we’re all soft around the edges.

I can be good if you need good.
I can drown in good if you can swim.

Episode 91 – Blood Ties

My life 
is a series of memories –
of mom in the kitchen,
of dad’s disappearance.
But they’re not real,
my memories.
All lies.

I wash away 
like a sand castle
as the tide comes in,
leaving broken shells
and scattered seaweed.

Every story I’ve ever told
a myth, 
a cloud drifting by.
Not a girl
who was born
and grew up
and can now die
of sadness for never
really being alive.