Behind The Scenes Of A Personal Exorcism
In the grand scheme of things, I am insignificant.
I am dust, and less than.
But I am not the kind of girl to settle down in the void, I will not be quiet at the peak of that mountain, I will not be content I will not be content I will not be content –
I was made to be something, somebody and I will not be content.
My blood boils at the thought that one day the last person who knew of me will perish and that will be the end of me.
The need to live forever, my legends be the whisper of the universe, my limbs in your head.
Bear the Devil's crown in exchange for eternal life.
I am calmed by almost winter curling its lip at me, vicious. Finally, penance. My breakfast tastes like ash, the almost too sweet taste of cherries would be a welcome distraction from this nothingness if I did not deserve it - but I do.
What's wrong?
My food tastes like the walls of a volcano, my tongue is a boulder in my mouth, it's face stained with soldiers blood. My mother is a crow without a voice, picking at my shining eyes, my father is a sinkhole, a wide mouth with arms for teeth - pulling pulling, killing. I wish we had more time to bask in the pink of the sun, I've never done that with you.
My name, you dont say it the way you spell it. The way one would hold a knife on their tongues if they had the chance - carefully, like it might cut you. The sigh comes from deep within your marrow, the ripples from the centre of your being, a slow, drawn out jumping of your blood. The hair on the back of your neck rises when I open my eyes - as a wolf, why would you wear sheep's skin at all?
The story begins with the death of a neighbor you did not care for, but it hardly matters because it changes you anyway.
That's what death does.
The wallpaper in your room is a sleepy pastel lavender, little blue roses blooming at precise intervals, a little maddening how precise. It begins to breathe the first day you lose your mind. Because that is what it means to be mad, you give life to everything. That is what it means to be Everything, you like Plath, in over your heads - the walls will remember you as the girls who wanted to be Everything.
Body slumped, limp spine like a doll, at night you are raised to your ceiling by an invisible string tied around your waist while the rest of you discovers how much you adore the ground. It is always the same, longing of gravity, your hands and the tips of your hair and the soles of your feet belong buried in dirt. The feeling of having once had a home, when you're miles out the door.
The neighbors pray, the priests and the children, the police cars begin to glitch in the middle of the day before disappearing entirely.
Devil girl, pray for the Devil girl, the Devil has her spine, her tongue, the Devil has her head and her lungs.
The only thing the Devil has is your name.
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