GET ME OUR OF HERE

 

in LA. hate it here. looking at the young cashiers, knowing some of them have dreams that will never be. by the time they figure it out, theyll be too old to pursue something else, really. it feels like looking livestock in the eyes. 

me and my family keep having issues. its still tense. im crying everyday. i asked my boyfriend to leave flowers at quorthons grave the other day and he did. im very thankful. at least theres that. im exhausted. ive been in the hotel room all day. i cry so much, constantly. 

schools almost starting. i want permission from my parents to get a tattoo. i know i already have a couple but they dont know that. i want permission for something on my arm, back, legs. i got a set of tiny spoons an ice cream shop. i am not doing much. i want to go look for stuff but i cant! i cant look for stuff.

i saw a beautiful fur coat. a pair of miu miu pumps, red, for 180 usd. a pair of heavily used laboutins. a pair of old yves saint laurent stilettos.

i miss my friends. im tired of my parents. im constantly ignored here. im upset. i want to walk until i fall off the edge of the world. i want to walk away and not pause, just keep walking forever. far from here.

mewwy chwistmas

 

happy holiday season etc! happy day

 got my nails done after God knows how long since i had to take my acrylics off due to covid (boo). did karaoke with my family all night. then we watched vanilla sky and i called my boyfriend for a bit. he travelled overseas, abandoned me. ill be on the east coast these holidays. yay. 

my dad is usually cold and distant. yesterday we also did karaoke, my brother was doing elvis impressions. i pulled him in to be with us. today we all sang. i had never heard my mom sing loud, and i had never heard my dad sing at all. we had a good time. really good time. 

my dad was trying to sell our old table and chairs on facebook marketplace. the table and chairs we grew up in. we dont eat there anymore. not since i relapsed and since my brother entered high school. i didnt get to say bye. but a woman came and took it, thanked us for our generosity and packed it up. he later revealed he gave the set to them as a gift, she was poor and had lost her husband and her daughters birthday was tomorrow.

God bless.

i had never known him to do something like that. it feels like my dues have been paid. it feels like every small thing i every did was paid back in my dad deciding to gift her our table. i sang a night like this with him, we sang juan gabriel, selena, boticcelli and soad. we sang a lot of songs. mostly elvis. i did mostly backups. im teaching my brother how to sing. 

been busy days anyway. planning my next tattoos and re working my spotify. rearranging my room, changed lights. getting ready for the semester. 

im getting better, im happier, i think ill make it. i think we all will. 

HAPPY BDAY RAZORBLADE ROMANCE

 

long time no see. again

 haii hai hai

its been so tense in my house for a week. the airs been so tight.

ive been doing better health wise as i think i already said. im excited for the change in universities. im excited overall. i feel better in my faith and i feel closer to God in a way. in wednesday i will go to Claudia for guidance. i want to have an appointment with my mom, i feel like the distance between us both has been drifting brutally. i keep thinking of when i was little, my clothes and long hair. we loved going to the movies then to pf changs for dinner. i miss talking to her. she thinks im doing drugs or something. shes blank faced all the time and talks to me as if im disappointed with me. 

i feel like everyone in my family almost revels in the fact that im a disappointment. they throw side eyes at each other when i speak or when i come home late (1 am!) from a club or bar. i barely ever get drunk, never been too drunk and i also never have been high. im a good daughter! im smart and kind! my brother speaks big words but nothing ever makes sense. i dont think even he understands his own metaphors. 

he doesnt read or play any instruments or draw or paint or anything. its not bad but i dont get why they think im stupid. ive read das kapital! he bought a special edition of the harry potter saga that remains unopen! i mean he has very good qualities to him and i have faults but my main point is that i find it so weird that everyone just likes him and deems him as better when were both equals. if anything at his age i had been more productive. 

i love my brother but whenever he has a video call hell steal my guitars and put them on the backdrop. he stole my lord of the rings books which are extremely significant for me. i dont know man. he keeps stealing my stuff. i feel oppressed here.

i went to the club yesterday for the first time and i had a blast. had a shot of flavored vodka. eww! it was very nice. when i came home my brother (i assume its important to say that he is two years younger than me, still in high school) were waiting for me. they feel better than me for no good reason! i had an absolute blast with my friends, it was beautiful. and here they come ruining the night for me. 

i woke up feeling guilty. my mom feels superior over me because she went into marriage a virgin. im doing the same but i think she doesnt believe me. i think she doesnt believe me because she 1. needs to feel better than me and 2. i am arduously pro choice and feel like if a teen gets pregnant and her parents dont support her decision to get an abortion financially and in general then its selfish because theyre putting their daughter at risk over their own moral standards. sorry i can have empathy for someone in a situation they kind of put themselves in! we all have done something similar (fuck around, find out).

ahhh!! get me out of here!!

ville valo beautiful man

 otherwordly beautiful. i wish i could achieve that standard of luminosity.

been thinking of restarting my novel. i feel alone here. 

i want more tattoos. my dad will kill me if he found out. i wish my parents loved me like they should. i wish i was a part of a tribe. i had a beautiful time at my boyfriends familys christmas dinner. ill give him his little gift tomorrow maybe. i hope he loves it. i hope he doesnt read this so if youre him look away:

i got him a chanel nail polish. immortelle. lilac, as he likes it. and the top coat for it to last long. he used to do his nails like that but they got damaged. lavander is his favorite color.

i feel so alone. i feel like im crawling on the floor looking for a home. i feel at home alone, but i want a home outside. i feel at home in his arms. i feel at home listening to razorblade romance. he caresses me softly like he would a small animal, like a rabbit or a young cat. he has large hands but a very soft touch. he cups my face and they feel warm. but i have no home.

im afraid hell leave me for a girl with beautiful long hair and clear, bronzed skin. someone he can go out to dinner with. someone whose body is unmarked, maybe has an upper lobe earring and wears a lot of white or pink. someone who uses denim and clean sneakers. i fear im too much for him. i fear hes too much for me. im afraid hes ashamed of me, that he judges me. it eats me alive. i feel impure and gluttonous and evil.  i feel like a hedonist, dirty and soft limbed. soft stomach. 

i feel so ashamed of who i am. i wish i didnt. i guess its what i get.

chestnuts roasting on an open fire...

 chrismas season! feeling. nice.

i am SPENT over the tattoos. im thinking of what ill get next year. been thinking of maybe working part time so i can afford a couple more sessions to make the ones i have look less like a constellation and more like a supernova. just give more structure. as of now, i have two ornamented little circles. one with a chi rho and the other one with a heartagram. i have a st james cross right on my sternum, a small heartagram on my chest and im starting a lower back tramp stamp type. its my biggest one. its a cross with the fleurs de lis. very beautiful. 

i think i will be getting some victorian or barroque ornament up the sides of my abdomen and under by chest. i think ill do the same for my lower back and then on the sides of my thighs. ill plan out my backpiece and sleeves later. hopefully one day ill get my chest and neck done. i want to get medieval looking themes. maybe swords for one of my favorite bands, agriculture. thats were the name of this blog came from.

the tattoo parlor where ive been going, where i got my septum and all of my tattoos, has to be an energy vortex. its such a calming, meditative place. its really gorgeous. its got such a peaceful aura. i cant describe it. 

im going to a new therapist. its more spiritually inclined. my therapist, claudia, says shes from the star cluster pleiades. she says Jesus Christ is from there, and so am i. she said we met in a past life, where i was a monk and so was she. she said i mightve been a nun. it resonates with me. everything she said resonated with me except for the having kids part. she said id for sure have them when 1. im infertile and 2. i am not and have never been even mildly interested in having my own children. i would love to adopt.

ive had very intense spiritual experiences these past weeks. i cant really describe them fully but i have. my digestion is better. everything else.

i need to go to confession tomorrow.

its been really nice. i feel peaceful and generally healthier somehow. im not very worried about anything anymore. i think were going to go to watch a movie soon. me and my family. 

elvis lana unchained melody argh!

i may be stupid. im getting a new one. ive meditated on the placements i can get away with. a heartagram probably. i want to get a fleur de lis and a pentagram soon, and a lower back later on when i have the money to get it done. 

i tried weed the other day and genuinely felt nothing. maybe because i was drunk. i love alcohol. it makes the cold i feel in my bones swell down. my body is warm and im sedated lightly, like taking an anti inflammatory for throat pain. it eases my stomach pains and my head pains and my cold. its fun.

ive been watching elvis last performance. unchained melody. it breaks me. lana del rey, my favorite artist from when i was younger, did a cover recently. it was absolutely beautiful. nothing like her voice. she will go on to be one of the world most important artists of our generation. but man, the elvis cover. its like he knew. 

elvis

its heartbreaking. its so sad. lanas voice is like heaven. i remember when lust for life came out. it changed my life. so did nfr. nowadays i barely listen to anything other than maybe chemtrails over the country club, text book, maybe born to die. for the nostalgia.

gottamn

on the body in relation to the self

 i do not believe in nihilism. i do believe in a sort of lack of real meaning in this life apart from servitude to God and beauty. 

i believe nothing truly matters in regard to matter except for the presence aesthetic beauty and/or divine importance. 

the physical body is but a canvas we have wrapped around our wandering souls. we decorate as we wish and style it as we want. we choose to wear our symbols and display our works. as we walk, feed, grow and decay down, it wears and strains. it is a part of it. the human body is a beautiful machine that is vulnerable and frail.

weak is the flesh. we are to do as ordered. fast and abstain from sexual pleasure and defilement of the self. the self is not the body, the body is a representation of the self. our real job is to create a home for it and make it our own. its our car and garage, so to speak?

i think we also could easily go about our lives as we wish. our body as a car, again. a vehicle to get us to a café, the movie theatre, the bar, a restaurant, the church or the synagogue. the resting place of of an affair, a motel, maybe a sex shop or a dungeon. who knows, do of anything as you will. i want to touch sexual subjects, i think theyre important to talk about. i think i have a unique understanding that some of you might not like. anyway.

it doesnt matter what we do to it. ive heard statements such as that the body has to be returned as it was given to us by God. i do not think so. i think its inevitable for the body to run down. not work out enough, work out too much, not seeing the sun, too much sun, too much food, too little, bad foods, good foods, too much fiber, too much meat. 

more than these examples, which will happen through thime, youll fall from a tree and hurt your hands when you hit the ground. youll also fall and scrape the skin off your knees. youll pick at your dry lips and bleed, youll get into an argument with your brother and get a nasty scar over your brow as a result. youll fall off a bike and get got. it is what it is. 

we cant return the body we were given. we shouldnt see it that way. because we were given this body, not lended this body. i have so many little scars. i have one in my nose, when i got my nose job which i regret more than anything ive ever regretted. i have scars on my thighs and arms because im stupid and not very good at emotional overloads. i have scars on my knees for being insolent and energetic as a child. i have a scar under my chin for being a bit too rushed on the stairs. we all do. 

the body is a gift that can experience lifes pleasures and pains. sickness, good food, bad food and the result of it, kisses, hugs, cuts, bruises, music, sunsets, sunlight, burns. we all will age and get old and wrinkly. and we all will make use of this body and grind it to ashes. its what God intended. get a tattoo or carve a deep cut in the shape of a heart on your thigh, get a piercing, dress weird, get fuckass bangs, grow your hair down to your waist. as you wish. it is yours.

 He gave it to you. its the greatest gift He could ever give you. you can do anything right now. isnt that really nice? the greatest canvas and the widest of all experiences. seek them out while you can, after this life you will never see the sun again, wont ever feel it on your skin again, wont ever eat your favorite soup, kiss your partner, hug your friends, listen to your favorite band and sing to the radio in your car. wont dance to your favorite song again, loud and clear in the club. never get drunk again. never see your body, bleed, shower. enjoy it, good God i will miss it when i have to.

man these are ugly

pentacles

The five pointed star Right side up, represents Masculine energy, it represents, spirit ruling over matter…. Spirit Grounded in duality.

The inverted star represents feminine energy. Matter ruling over spirit, Matter grounded in spirituality.

As above so below.

The physical material this universe is made of, is in essence, feminine. Matter=Mother. The conscious phenomenon is Masculine.

The Matter/feminine is a vessel for the Spirit/masculine

the body, and all living things, are vessels with some type of consciousness.

The senses are what create desire, so the bodily senses are what lead us into temptation, the body is made from matter and is inherently female. It comes into existence, and then it decays, Much like the moon, and much like a womans menstruation . It is inherently “evil” on its own… It begets and begets, but always falls away.

This is why eve is considered the fall of man.

Eve = Evil

Eve = begining

Begining means it was created.

It came forth through desire.

Eve represents many thing, as does the inverted star, we mostly associate the inverted star with Evil, and I dont think most people really understand the bible on a psychological level, but that is just because our physicality and our senses create desire with in us, which we have a very difficult time controlling or understanding. which forces us to live in a “fallen” state. Rather, unsatisfied on a deep level.

This is the tale of indulgence. Eating of the apple. The fall. Feeding into temptation. Gaining surface comfort, and not seeing the correlation with the negative in our life has caused us to just seek oblivion. What ever gets your though the day, coffee, a case of soda, perhaps a line of meth. Being abusive to others because we feel justified… dominating and disrespecting others because we feel entitles to superiority.

So while the inverted star repesents these things I want to clarify what evil truly is.
Evil is selfishness, its instant gratification. When you react to this world how ever you want and take what ever you want, you will pay a price.
When you feed into the Sensual desire of eve or your physical body, with out the guidance of Mind, or Adam, then chances are you are taking that which you have not earned. and Payment is due. The universe works that way. Suffering=growth.

There are two ways to suffer.

One, this being the easiest, Is to simply take what you like when you like it, fly off the handle, You live life by a whim, only doing what you absolutely have to when you have to, and doing what you want when ever, having no discipline or drive, and finding “false” peace in worldly pleasures. Impulsive behavior invites and begets suffering. this is “going against gods will” And you will suffer greatly, in mind. You will become even more impulsive, erratic, and insane. You wont have true peace, and you wont be able to accomplish things of worth. The worst of all, the more you feed into the bodies senses in an un healthy way the stronger the urges become and the more difficult to resist, the less you understand and the more blind you become. Before you know it, you eye hole deep in an addiction, a toxic relationship or your just an asshole of a person, and you dont even know, because your mind is so numbed by the constant indulgence and gratification which is not truly gained, that your completely unaware of the insanity you live in. You think its normal to Have suicidal thoughts, you think its normal to be verbally abusive to your most dear ones. You don’t see anything wrong with doing drugs, or what ever your issue may be.

And then there is daily suffering, a choice made, to suffer now, for prospect of a better future. Choosing to hold your anger and instead speak with compassion to try to fix things, Going to work, even showering and making sure you eat the right things. Doing things like Yoga, to relax your body and increase your health, or Meditation to develop a better quality mind, more focus and higher intelligence. Practicing a non violent diet, as not to contribute to the suffering of millions. Growing your own food, Connecting with and helping others find better ways of living. Encouraging and Influencing the people around you for the better. They aren’t exactly exciting things, they aren’t as entertaining as perhaps, going shopping, or playing games, or watching tv, or doing drugs or having sex. A selfish, undisciplined mind, will revolt at the idea of these things. But in the long run, they develop a peace of mind in a person which can not be taken away.

When you make decisions out of pure desire, you don’t weigh the reality of things. You don’t stop to question the ethics or how it effects your mind, body and this world. Every choice we make influences the world we live in. Everyday we choose to smoke cigarettes or make rude remarks or eat something that’s not food for us, we are destroying are world through impulsive desire. Falling into the temptations of the mind.
Not all thoughts are complete, not all thoughts are reality. Certainly not all thoughts are meant to continue on, but its up to us to get rid of the negative impact our minds have on us. Will Power is our TOOL though many of us thing our thoughts are ours, and we are our thoughts. On the contrary, thoughts are choices. And should be chosen wisely.

So in short, The upside down star collectively has been dubbed, evil or what ever because in the internal workings of the mind, the Feminine, Lucifer, Eve, or as we know it, DESIRE which spawns from the SENSES has caused us to chase after a false state of peace, for we lack the presence of mind it takes to prepare for a better future.

Which is why its important that;

As above so below.

Which is why Man unites with woman. Not literally speaking,

but,

when desire and mind come together, and desire guides mind and Mind Guides desire, creation happens.

When desire over powers mind, destruction comes

when mind over powers desire, chaos springs forth.

But when Desire, Marries Mind, A Christ is born in man.

You have to have the best of both worlds.

As above must be so below.

ophilia gadalayne on quora

tears on tape

 

got them! all three! already planning the next ones.

i want maybe a moth, a sign of mary. 

im high as fuck on drugs.

haii hai :3 haii hai hai haii :3 :3 hai 

i need a planner for the year of 2024 and maybe some clothes but only a couple new pieces.

my tattoo artist was very, very nice and it barely hurt. it turned out beautifully. i loved it. it  wasnt very painful. i was worried sick for the sternum. it was less painful than the hip bone. go figure. wait

its been nice. im high as fuck on drugs. i hit a wax God knows how many times and nothing happened. maybe its because i mixed it with alcohol?  i feel sleepy but only a bit. i usually do. im always at the verge of maybe a nap. 

im very happy. if my parents found out i am done. but they wont. its not like they can check? maybe my mom but shes not invasive. not like that. it was a whole thing. were fine now. i hope it heals nice. im thinking what ill do in the future now that ive taken a plunge (?) and figured out that it really doesnt hurt like i thought it would.

kept hearing people say its more of a pressure type of pain than anything. i cant stand burning or pressing sensations. stinging is more like it, but its mild. when i was around seven i rested my hand on an ants nest and i got stung. it was horrible. it felt nothing like that. it was a fast, sharp, vibrating sensation that only bordered on pain. uncomfortable, very. but only if i focused.

it was fine, really nice. im at my friends house and ive hada good night. maybe.. it isnt.. over.. who knows,

i keep thinking about my family. my aunts, my still living grandma and my passed away grandma. very different people, from what i gather mostly. i keep forgetting details. i never asked my grandma enough questions. i feel like i shouldve. i know some bits of her life but not of herself. i dont know if i am projecting what i mean. i know some things shes done and some things she is but nothing about her tastes

i think thats the most important thing in the world. tastes. what we like and what we do with what we have. music, clothing, anything. everyone does those. i think its the purest projection of what really is within us. its not regulated by the most part. idk

meow

 its been fine honestly. 

tomorrow is the big day and if my parents find out i will kill myself actually. 

anyway i am listening to metal and i am trying to manifest something to write about. i get ideas when im praying the rosary but im afraid that if i interrupt my prayer i will cause God to smite me.

i finally finished my designs and as i said i will be going tomorrow then on the 6th. no plans for the weekend. im not gonna drink because bad for the healing. sad! i wanted to drink to the point of vomiting blood.

i watched napoleon. i find it sad. poor man was genuinely autistic probably. i think this is the case for most of the men who have wanted to conquer the world. the case with men who try to invade russian territory. its a banal and pointless persuit. i cant imagine these people lay on their deathbeds and are happy with themselves and what theyve done. 

argh! i dont know im braindead today.

long time no see... on the self. myself.

 

its been so rough sometimes. i think im a bit better. ive been fasting and meditating. praying a lot.

i booked two appointments for three small tattoos, i know what i want to get but im not sure exactly how or exactly where. im thinking a cross of saint james on my sternum and an ornamented christogram on my right hip or lower abdomen. on my left, a parallel but with a heartagram. it sounds bad when i saw it out loud. i dont care. 

at mass the other day the priest spoke about how all things inevitable tend to be hard to predict. the second coming of Christ, God, death. i will die, probably sooner than later. sooner than other people in my class. i decided to go for it. 

about a month ago i went to a concert. my favorite artist of all time, my favorite album from the last many years. why not. why not.

ive always been ashamed of myself, my tastes, my likes and dislikes. i didnt seem to fit into any box i wanted to, i was always orbiting on a ring. always landing somewhere in the middle. as i grew, i tended away from these boxes. i went upward instead of left or right.

im intensely sensitive and my sensitivity betrays me. i wanted to be a paleontologist at six, a historian at seven, a tattoo artist at eight, a psychologist at ten, then all of it and more at fifteen. as the age of choosing came closer, i got sick. i lost everything i had, my mind and identity, to illness.

this illness, my new self, maladie, engulfed me and cleared me from my appetite. cured me from my desires, i was chaste in every way that mattered and didnt. i didnt eat, endured cold summers and frigid winters, i didnt speak, i didnt drink. i did it all for a bigger thing than me. not a God, but a fog.

i learned to live with it, i couldnt purge it. i figured it didnt replace me but consumed me and made me a part of it. i tried to then explore ways in which i could, maybe, implode it and make it a part of me rather than the other way around. as to have more territory for me. 

my family is of conservative values. ive been in a haze so long. ive pretended i have ideas that arent mine and dressed in ways that would please them. little floral dresses, i kept growing my hair perpetually through my teenage years only to fall back on my own preferred way to have it- buzzed off. i used makeup i didnt like and spoke like i didnt feel. i started doing my nails as my mom liked, short and pink. i figured that the way to receive the reward of peace was to please my dad, keep sweet and agreeable.

i never was like that when i was younger, i started listening to metal at 10 and would be waiting to be able to have my sleeves done, to get a conch piercing, to drive a motorcycle and own an electric guitar, dye my hair black. i wanted to either keep it hip-length or have a buzzcut. i wanted thick eyeliner like the girls on tumblr. i grew to refine my tastes, but the base of it never changed. i wanted to feel strong and firm. i had a love for lace, pearls diamonds. i had a love of silk and the idea of running away. i loved science and music and history. i was reading novels and spending hours looking at paintings online. i was different in body and spirity. i never minded it, i barely have this any attention even if i noticed it. 

i wanted, however, more than anything, to have the glow that i perceived from the other girls in my classroom. pretty things i saw wandering. i used to hallucinate when in the class, fairy realms and enchanted forests. something within me was not clear enough. the purity and perfection they had on their skins i possessed only inside of my mind, in an abstract and twisted way. twisted like a tree from my dreams, as in made of the same material, only a darker and richer tone. warped into a shape it seemed only i understood. a strange misshapen spiral pulled from the earth.

i felt cursed by God. i feared God when i started believing. i loved him through the fear when i understood you could. fear and love are opposites but can exist in the same universe.

i let go of the traditional values of my family, the ones i worked so hard on implementing on me, as armor. 

but lately i feel like my sorrow comes from that trying to shape this tree into a straight line when its been calcified for so long. maybe leaving it as is, watering it still, decorating its branches could bring it back to life?

im called to decorate my branches, im called to taking care of what i am without the intention of change or beauty. the persuit of beauty has corrupted me for ages. my body is meant to be used and shaped into what i want. its my vessel to care for if i want and my temple to adorn. and my life is a book nobody will read that i get to write. i get to write it as i may, i cant fear judgement like i have. 

i cant permit this to end me. if i run out of pages early, who minds? i was born alone and i will die alone, came into this earth alone with God, developed adoration and grew strong alone with God, will die alone with God, and die satisfied. i will do what i have to do to move my body into the shape of my soul, i will do it all even if it means rejection. if i cant have myself, i cant have anything. even if having myself means losing everything else. if i have myself, if i can look within myself enough to find God.

if i can use my flesh to make something real and solid rather than something empty and beautiful, then i should stop trying to settle for half and half.  

lullaby, low

 

Cross over and turn
Feel the spot don't let it burn
We all want we all yearn
Be soft don't be stern
Lullaby
Was not supposed to make you cry
I sang the words I meant
I sang

lullaby - low

soul love 22 nov 22

I was so terribly acquainted with his face. 

–They say if you love an artist, you’ll live forever.

–Well, that's very nice. Keep still.

I remember those same words, repeating over and over in my studio

and all over the city. I recall every place where

we shared this exchange through the years we cradled.

It's cemented in my mind, it's familiar. If i close my eyes

I’m sure i can still hear it resonating through the stuffed

out halls of our apartment. Because i do this often.

I remember him perfectly, as I knew him perfectly.

His face and his shoulders, mostly. His body as well.

I remember his legs and the exact position of his oldest

childhood scar over his knobby, pale knee.
I remember its color. I remember it looked strangely

white over his knees which, like his elbows, always seemed

to flare pink. Like he had been kneeling or laying over his elbows.

His shoulders were small and boney. I remember the line of his

collarbone curve up to the sides of his frame. I

remember the middle, the tip of his drained

sternum, looking hollow.

–¿What are you up to?

–Not much.

–Dont seem like it. 

–Just a landscape.

–Let me see.

I remember that hands were thin and long, like spiders. I always

took special care to portray them correctly. He lifted the canvas.

I studied his movements, his protruding knuckles, the smallest

blemishes over the peaks of them. As a kid, his father wanted him

to become a wrestler. He wanted to be a dancer, or a painter. He became

a quiet musician, a mute poet, but mostly a half-alcoholic hermit

and slight banker like his old man. He carried himself with a great

posture despite his great stature. I barely recall that detail.

I remember he was awfully tall, ran in the family. It seemed less

prominent with a frame like his. Like a small woman,

ribs like a cats.

I remember how he was slow moving. He took my sketchbook

up to see it proper. I looked at the movements of his eyes. I

remember his irises so perfectly. Grey infested green. His left eye

had a small spot the color of dry moss right below the pupil.

His eyelashes were long and thick, but would drag down, like

silk fans. If you were to look from a matching angle, everytime he looked

at the floor it seemed like he was in a peaceful sleep. 

I remember the way his muted waterline curved into his lashline,

and the way his eyelid seemed so thin. Under the light,

one could see his iris. His eyes were a dull flame, closer to

death than birth. I remember the way his eyelids folded as he

held my sketchbooks up, as to examine them better. He had an

ordinary face but possessed a strange beauty. 

I remember how his skin draped over his sternum like wet

cloth over metal. Every part of his body was a ghastly

vision.

I remember it well. The exact way that his mouth curved.

He had a slight asymmetry. He slept on his right, so the right

side of his mouth would crawl slightly higher than the left.

From the center to the ends, they would go up slightly, at about

the same rate as his cupid's bow, perfectly brisk. Then, they

would bow lower, and end in a tiny smirk. The ends of his mouth

were dimpled and low. His lips were thin and their

edges were sharp.

–Its beautiful. youve outdone yourself.

–You always say that.

–I always mean it.

His teeth were rounded, damaged, small. But not too small

. I could not see many teeth when he smiled, his mouth

was not big. His forehead was high.

His cheekbones were the same. He was all angles, shadows

and cavities. High and mathematically correct. His chin into

his jaw, shadowing into his ear, shadowing into his cheekbone,

molding into his delicate, short nose. The tip casted a shadow

onto his philtrum. Carefully, it seemed. His eyes on each side

of his stout bridge, his lashes casting a shadow onto the whites

of his eyes. His eyelids shadowed into his temples, into his hair. 

But I didn't have to look at him. I knew it all. I knew how

everything looked, at each angle and with every lighting.

I remember how he looked like laying down and on his feet.

Nude and fully draped. I remember the exact course his

blood rushed down his nose when he got too drunk or dehydrated.

After I cleaned him up, I ran my finger through that path as

he started fading into sleep. His hair, each curl, where it l

anded on his face or his neck. I remember which spines of

his protruded more than others, I remember how each bone

and muscle looked at each pose. 

I could draw him, sculpt him from memory. I could, closing

my eyes, make an exact replica. I can, from thin air, pin the

exact dimensions and the exact placements. His high brows,

his stretched eyes, I could create a palette of every single color

on his body if you gave me a place and hour, given we were

talking daylight. Light source and color, given we were talking

artificial light. I remember how his legs stretched. Not muscular,

thin. Not soft, really. Solid enough for him to walk so much.

He walked a lot. The exact peach for his lips, exact blue, gray

and green for each strand of his iris, the exact brown of his hair,

the exact pinks id have to mix with the yellows to create

the perfect beige for his skin.

I remember him perfectly, i remember how thin his skin felt,

i remember how his ribs felt under my hand. I remember how

the exact weight of his skull when i lifted it to put a pillow

under his head, his habit of falling asleep on the table.

His arms crossed, right over left. His legs stretched and his feet

pointing up.

–It really is beautiful. You are very talented. I wish you could see

yourself like I do.

–I don't think I need to. 

And its true. I didnt need to at the time. I kept looking at him.

I remember his natural scent and his favorite perfume over it.

I remember it after five minutes and five hours. I remember his

voice after a night out screaming, after a day in crying, after hot tea,

after a pack of cigarettes. I remember the cigarettes on his breath,

mostly when we slept together, which was not most days. I remember

the pattern he took when rolling in bed. I knew every passing

thought. If he wanted to have sex, I could tell from the night

before. If he was going to break

into tears, i could tell why and for how long and with which severity

a full day or two before it happened. I just knew him like that. I remember

it perfectly. I think I still do, at least. wherever he is.

a bluebeard of wives, sabrina orah mark for the paris review, october 2019

 

“Sabrina,” says my husband’s first wife, “is married to my husband.” I hear this through The Grapevine, a multibranched root system resembling the hearts of my husbands’ two ex-wives planted in the same plot of deep, fertile soil. Vines like earthy veins, growing tough and twisty. A friend brings me cuttings. I hold them to my ear and listen.

I look in the mirror. I have become uglier and stronger. I look out the window. A white shed glows in my yard. I live in “the unguessable country of marriage.”

“Bluebeard” first appeared in Charles Perrault’s seventeenth-century Tales of Mother Goose. A man with a blue beard, several missing wives, and extraordinary wealth gives his newest wife all the keys to all the doors of his very fine house. “Open anything you want,” he says. “Go anywhere you wish.” Except for the “little room,” he says.

I ask my husband to clean out the garage, but instead, while I am gone for the summer with our sons, he builds in our backyard—dead center—a white shed. As the walls go up, his second wife drops their daughter off to live with us, possibly forever. She also drops off many boxes. Contents unknown. The garage is half empty now. The shed is half full. I call my mother. “Now there’s a shed in my yard,” I say. “Of course there’s a shed,” says my mother. “Better check it for wives.”

There are doors no third wife should ever open.

My husband, possibly the gentlest man on earth, came to me in a coat of old vows. I married him knowing he arrived with wives. Maybe I married him a little bit because the vows had somehow deepened the lines on his face. Like handwriting I wanted to read, but never could. I married him knowing, but I didn’t know the wives would keep growing in a locked room in my heart. Sometimes they move around, angrily. Sadly. Wives, like peeling wallpaper. Curling wives. Wives like skin. Wives who tell their daughters things that their daughters, my husband’s daughters, don’t tell me. That silence breathes inside me. “What did she say?” I am always asking. “What did who say?” my husband answers.

“Perhaps,” writes Angela Carter, “in the beginning, there was a curious room, a room like this one, crammed with wonders; and now the room and all it contains are forbidden you, although it was made just for you, had been prepared for you since time began, and you will spend all your life trying to remember it.”

I am not an incredibly jealous person, but it hurts to think of my husband saying, “I do. I do. I do.”

Once a month, for over a year, I am told my husband’s first wife is moving to our town any day now, but she never does. It’s like when my sons put silver spoons under their pillows hoping it will snow in Georgia. Neither the snow nor the wife ever comes. Except for once. But it wasn’t snow, it was hail.

Marriage is hard. There are days when all the dead wives are me. The wife who is never sad. Dead. Hanging on a hook. The wife with a good paying job. Dead. The wife with a clean garage and a window that looks out her kitchen. Dead. The dancing wife. Dead. The famous wife. The wife with straight teeth. The wife who throws sparkling dinner parties filled with brilliant poets. Dead, dead, dead.

What do you call more than one wife? A bluebeard of wives?

Grimms’ Fairy Tales

, Wilhelm Grimm (in the annotations) makes a handwritten comment that Bluebeard believed the blood of his wives could cure his beard of its blue. This is why the wives’ blood is collected in basins. He bathes in it. His dead wives are his medicine. An imaginary disease needs an unimaginable cure. “Magic,” writes Maria Tatar, “happens on the threshold of the forbidden.”

I look through old photographs of my husband. In one, he is with his second wife and their newborn daughter, who is asleep on a pillow. The pillowcase is gray and white and I recognize it as the same soft, worn pillowcase I now sleep on. Have slept on for years. My head fills up with hot static. A biting shame. I pull the pillowcase off and put it with the rags. I should give it to my stepdaughter, but I don’t and I don’t know why I don’t. I just don’t.

I am married to a man I love very much who had many lives before the life I now share with him. Sometimes I look around for myself in those lives. Under the bed. Behind a tree. One day I might just jump out, whispering boo.

Or maybe the wives should put me in a barrel stuck full of nails and roll me downhill into the river.

The first time I met my husband’s father was at his funeral. The casket was open. To this day, my husband’s father is the only dead person I have ever laid eyes on. Our son, Noah, would have his eyes, his mouth, but I didn’t know this yet. After my husband gave the eulogy, but before he could return to the nave, my husband’s first wife flew toward him like a soft white bat. A blur in the air that had been locked in a chamber for years. She collapsed into his arms. Shaking and sobbing and coming into focus, as if she was returning to life. I sat in the pew like a dumb little girl. They shared grief and they shared daughters. And by the time they had broken each other’s hearts, I was still nothing but a child.

If Bluebeard’s wives were killed for having laid their eyes on all the dead wives who came before them, then why did the first wife die? What could she have seen?

I’m the wife all the way at the end of the paper chain. I look to the left down the long hallway. I see the little room. The little room where writing is safe. Here is the combination: key, flower, egg, apple, heart. I open the door. I go in. Look at this place. It smells like being alive. If I could do it all over again I’d marry my husband in this little room. I’d give birth to my sons in this room. I’d die in this room. I would. I will. I do.

Sabrina Orah Mark is the author of the poetry collections The Babies and Tsim Tsum. Wild Milk, her first book of fiction, is recently out from Dorothy, a publishing project. She lives, writes, and teaches in Athens, Georgia.