Afire

She heard the story

Of the girl who wrote poems

Under the desperate watch of the moon

And, when found

The girl locked herself in a closet

And set herself alight

She knows better

Of course.

She knows when to nod

And smile

When to cover her face and

Hold her tongue.

But she cannot help

The wanton words

the lustful lines

that escape her

in broken bits of song

a forbidden courtship in ink

scribbled hastily onto the back of

the veiled hand

rubbed away at a

moment’s notice.

She can’t let them see.

She wonders if she has the disease

The blood sin

The wax-wicked words

That set a poet afire.

-Christina

Note: this is a poem based on a true story, from this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/magazine/why-afghan-women-risk-death-to-write-poetry.html?pagewanted=all 

Beautiful Skinny

My mommy is the most beautiful person in the world. She smiles like an angel, and when she gives me hugs, her hair tickles my face. Sometimes I sneak into her room when she’s getting ready, and watch her put her paint on her face (Mommy calls it makeup) and spray her delicious par-fume. In the morning, she always smells like flowers and fruit, but by night, her hugs smell of almost burnt cookies and chicken soup. She hugs me with strong arms, squeezes me tight. She sings in the kitchen, loud and shaky, but I think it’s perfect.

My mommy doesn’t think she’s beautiful. When she’s putting that chalk dust on her cheeky-bones, she sighs, and talk about the imaginary lines on her face. They must be imaginary, because I can’t see them. She bakes the cookies, but leaves it all to me and Daddy. She stares at the melting chocolate bits, a little sad, while Daddy asks her about her die-et. She frowns while Daddy jokes about the tummy of hers. She reaches for an apple.

There’s a pretty dress in Mommy’s closet. It’s lacy and pink, and Mommy says she wore it when she was young and skinny.

I look at her. “When will I be ‘skinny’?”

Mommy frowns. “Darling, you already are. I wish I could be as beautiful as you.”

She worries. Every morning, when I peek into her and Daddy’s room, I see her stand on that scale, and sigh a little. She looks over pictures, and when Santa Claus gave me A Little Princess and The Wind in the Willows, he took our cookies and gave Mommy a weight-loss book to make her “skinny”.

One day, I see herself sitting in the closet, holding the dress in her lap and crying over the scale. That day, she only had carrots for breakfast.

 Later, I go into the closet and look at the dress. The next day, when I look closer, I begin to see Mommy’s lines. Maybe I can only have apples when I grow up. Maybe I don’t want the tummy.

Maybe I want to be skinny. 

Neverland

They told me of an island

Fraught with magic

With faeries and thick-brush swamps

Wild mysticism, untamed innocence

children go there in their dreams

To the legend

Where the pure

ones dwell.

Ruled by a mischievous boy

The young spitting image of Hermes

Dressed in green

I wished hard

For the night

I’d escape from the window

Be lighter than the wind

Fly.

Fly, fly away to the Neverland.

I suppose I can’t now.

  

I’m too old.

Even in my youth, I’m

weighed by my knowledge

changing

slowly becoming chained to this earth

I can’t be an astronaut.

I can’t fly to the moon.

I can’t grow wings.

I spit words out of my mouth

Like gold

They—adults—are beginning to listen to me now.

Worn down by years

Marked by sin

Illuminated with wisdom

I am becoming them

Slowly

Sinking

Into their beautiful

Elaborate

Sad

world.

I am no longer

That whimsical child

Asleep on top of

The book of fairy tales.

I can’t escape through my dreams

Now.

Maybe it’s called the Neverland

For a reason. 

why roses are red

Deep in the forest there was a wild rose patch.

They wound through the brambles and branches in beautiful disarray, like the sweet script of words on the pages of a fairy-tale book. The petals were fresh and soft, with the magic of the long-gone Folk, untouched, hiding the thorns that lay underneath. 

Of course, the traveler didn’t know this as he walked through the forest. There was hardly a chirp, or the soft scattering paws of a frightened animal. Instead he saw spindly trees, the roots slightly blackened, the branches balding. The wind was an underlying presence, like a shrill whisper in the dead silence.

It was almost a little too silent. No life in the dead of the woods.

Funny, how he thought he was only a wee bit lost. He didn’t know he was wandering towards that rose patch. The trees grew taller, wider. He found himself in the thick of the forest, waiting for a place to rest for the night.

And then he saw it.

It was a grove, a clearing, a field shielded by the forest wall. There were the roses, blooming from the edges, evanescent, perfectly shaped.

Except…

He stopped. Stood still.

There was no perfume, no fragrance of the flowers. The smell was odd, rotten; it clung to the air like rusty patches.

The moment his hair began to crawl, on his arms, the forest came alive.

A trunk struck him, enough to knock him off his feet. Branches shot out, trapping him in place. The rose branches crawled sinuously, the long, sharp thorns flashing in the light.

The traveler opened his mouth to scream, but the thorns reached in and sliced his tongue apart. The branches were taking him, binding him, constricting him. The rose thorns gouged into his cheeks and tore his clothes to shreds, then feasted on his skin.  He thrashed; terror seized him, rendered him immobile as he realized why there was no life in the forest.

Slowly, slowly, like in the jaws of a carnivorous animal, the man was eaten apart by the trees and branches and thorns.

Three days later, the rose petals turned a fresh, brilliant red, and blood that oozed out dripped onto the fertile ground.

-Christina

Dreams of Ships

When she was small, she dreamed of ships.

Tall, lumbering ships that forged the Ice Seas, with tattered masts and wind-swept sails, like scars borne from a great tale. She listened to the stories her Da told her, the sea monsters who reared their heads and stirred up storms, swallowing the sailors with a gulp. She dreamed of the open seas under the starlit skies, with nothing but the moon and the hum of the wind to guide her. She dreamed of the glint of a sword, the tang of the salty air.

Ships were the first of many dreams. As soon as she could read, she disappeared into the library for days on an end, carrying a hand-bound book of once-blank pages. She came out with a head full of tales, a tongue full of forbidden words, and hands blotted with ink from the pen.

She was a hero. An oathbreaker, a fatebender. She dreamed of an isle to claim.

She whispered the stories to her brother, who laughed at her and told her to stitch, and to her Ma, who gently smiled and told her to tighten her laces.

She saw the lumbering sailors on the docks, with rough hands and scurvied teeth, and saw in their eyes the battle scars and jubilant song of adventure, and she smiled to herself. But the ribbons and bodices squeezed her insides, trapping her like a cage, and now her Da pulled her away.

Maybe she wasn’t meant for the seas.

 So she turned her head from the sailors’ docks and walked on.

They layered silks on her, beautiful ruffles of taffeta and chiffon. They rubbed rose oil and powder into her skin and painted her lips. They led her to parties, lessons, where they smothered her blasphemous wit with a soft voice and a yielding manner.

She dreams of a prince to carry her away.

Once vivid, now her dreams are now delicate, muted. She carries the spirit of a fierce romantic, a blazing spirit, but the world has worn her around the edges and tamed a fury, bent her and shaped her, surrounded her like the diamonds around her pale, creamy neck.

Once in a while, she still sees the ships from her childhood. But only from afar.   

-Christina

Red Angel Lost

She is a pale ghost

swathed in silk.

Apple-cheeked

Lips the color of blood

A complexion of milk

A smile of honey

She flies through the crowd

Effervescent, effortless

An angel, immaculate

Seen through the blurred glass rim

Of the champagne flute

She is a falling star that has burnt herself out.

The devil visits her

When the night turns quiet

And the champagne turns dark

Among the scattered bottles

Elaborate dresses

strewn on the floor

Pills click like pearls

Tears blur

Anger

Sadness

Heartbreak

Little by little, she

loses herself to him

In the haze of delirium and

Chanel No. 5

She is cracking under the porcelain skin

With a dangerous red-lipped smile

That can fool a sage

To guard the remnants of her heart

But who can see her?

Who can tell?

Even angels lie.

She pulls on the dress

And straps on the shoes

The music is starting

and

Maybe she can dance

This

One

Last

Time.

-Christina

(inspired by pictures below and Lana Del Rey's "Carmen")

Silver hearts

 In the misty, dripping night, a girl walks the wet cobblestones. The wind hisses around her, whispering a feeble warning. Broken lamps line the street.

But she does not fear the dark; she welcomes it. Darkness has long become a familiar escort. In the night, and she moves among the mist like a shadow.

She is complete.

The dress billows out behind her. The fabric, darker than ebony, runs long down her arms, concealing the small blade pressing against her palm. A curtain of lace covers her face; none of her marble flesh is exposed.

If you look closely enough, you see her movements are slightly disjointed, not fluid enough. If they lift the veil, they see haunting eyes that stare ahead with absolute conviction.

But no one dares venture that close.

The shops line the street; odd, lumbering, silent figures of brick and wood. Lamps have long flickered to a close. Even the adults are dreaming.

All save for one.

The girl fears the light. It means life, and punishment. But tonight, she has nothing to fear.

Her skirts sweep up to the doorstep. The knock is lighter than a feather.

The door opens.

A face peers out. His hands are smudged with grease; wrinkles line his face. In the dim candlelight, she sees that his hair has stuck up, in messy tufts. The lone candle lights the small, cramped workshop.

The door closes behind them.

Tonight, his expression is tight, revealing nothing. He watches her carefully. His eyes slide down to her right hand. Slowly. she brings it up and lifts her palm to the light.

Blood tips the small steel blade. Beside the dagger lay a small, corked, empty vial.

His eyes dart up. His whisper is low, deadly. “Did you do it?”

She nods, once. “Yes.”

His warm fingers come up, takes them from her ice-cold hand. She looks up, imploring.

Outside, the wind howls and shrieks. The mist, no longer calm, is ripped into a thousand pieces.

She needs it. She needs it badly. Or else—it would be over by dawn. 

“Good,” he says. He reaches into his shirt and draws out a small, bright silver key. “Turn around.”

She obeys. She reaches back and lifts her veil.

Beneath her tightly pinned hair, in the nape of her snow-white neck, is a keyhole.

His hands are steady as he inserts the key. He turns the key.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Her body shudders through each click of the key. Inside, the gears silently whirl.

“Three turns,” her master says, drawing the key out. “You can life for three more days. You know what you have to do.”

She turns. And nods.

It's heard to have a heart when you've stopped so many others. 

But not when it's made of steel and silver.

Outside, the darkness watches them both.

-Christina

Trinkets

Christina here.

My spiel on the theme is brief, and then I will post a story of my own.

I have three things.

First, a warning;

Don't be fooled by this blog's title.

There are many ways to interpret beautiful. Whimsically beautiful. Strangely beautiful. Dangerously beautiful. (I will most likely write the latter.) Oh, and curiosities? Many options to consider there, hmmm?

And then the word "some". It's vague. But only because all three of us despise math and the quantifiable realm.

Don't box us into genres. We will write contemporary, prose, poetry, fantasy, paranormal--like a jumble of trinkets in a stuffy antique shop. It's best to come hungry.