cian. d7. fin

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

fourteen. fairies. forests. animals with split skulls.
unintentional animal afterlife therapist.
lyrics: son lux (breathe in; breathe out)

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

[presto]

CLOSE YOUR EYES
SWALLOW THE SUN
YOU HAVE ONLY JUST BEGUN

[/presto]

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

[presto]

C I A N

[/presto]

at death,
people say you see your life flash
before your eyes.

but i saw my own ghost when he laid me down to sleep,
a skull pulsing red and bright and warm and brilliant.
he led me into a kingdom of a thousand sand dunes
of ivory pillars spinning shapes into the burning sky --
of ribs gleaming and screaming in the orange sun,

and he held my hand,
into this empire of cavernous castles,
bare and wasted structures
eating landscapes whole,
leaving dark holes across the sand,
still looking for some semblance of warm and wet and moving in this desert.

we walked through this carcass of man,
finding paths across the broken vertebrae of his spine.
the summer wind howled a three-note whistle
through the cathedral of my bones,
shaking me until i rattled hollow and toppling and broken.

cut off at the knees,
and i fell to the roaring in my ears.

oh ripred --

he lifted me softly to my feet,
and let me sway against him in the howling wind.

we kept walking,
i kept stumbling,
right into the void of the skeleton's chest,
searching for an oasis we could never find:
its lungs were gushing,
rotten,
imprinted in blood-soaked sediment.
the stain spread when the breeze blew,
coating my lips and hair in iridescent rust.

i was sparkling, and
"isn't that extraordinary?" the ghost said to me. "you're all glittery."
and i nodded, nodded yes because i was sparkling and the ghost was wavering along the compound fracture of my arm,
peering at me inquisitively,
and in the holes of its skull, was an endless extinction
i could not disagree with.
my shoes are full of blood, i said.

"you don't want to wake up," he answered, tilting my chin upwards from my feet.
his skeletal fingers closed around my hand, and tugged me gently away from the footprints on the pavement floor.
"you don't have anything there for you,"
his voice was a coo,
the same three-note whistle
that made dust storms in my belly, up my throat --
an asphyxiation as i coughed and coughed, the red flowing thick from my mouth,
blemishing the snowy white bones
in rivers, in warm
wet
moving
lakes.

it was salt and burning and open wounds,
and at once,
they came alive,
undone, each naked pillar collapsing as sinew crawled up like vines,
muscles growing, pink and tender and spilling hot organs in the empty spaces.

he pulled me forward,
too violently,
lurching, tripping, my hands were grinded with asphalt,
spots of blood pooling in my palms,
black and blue and brown and red,
colours popping across my pale skin like firecrackers,
the explosions pounding in my ears.

he looked at me again, two black hollows,
that swallowed the sun,
the light,
licked up sunbeams,
until i could only see myself,
small and slight and just a speck from way up here,
bleeding a world of oceans and currents and red.

but i don't want to die, i told him with my eyes.
"no no no no don't move -- just hang in there a little longer. we're going to get you to the hospital, kid, just stay awake --"

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

the mister states,
very matter-of-factly,
doctorly,
that i would be okay.

he punctured my lung,
    but just a little,
    it wasn't too deep.

he tried to slit my throat,
    but he had been drunk and weepy
    and missed the carotid.

doctor says
i can't speak right now,
the knife went in wrong.
    but we'll see he promises me.

there are tubes in my chest.
i try to tell him this,
but my voice comes out in gurgles and
i don't try again.

he grows soft for a moment,
before my eyes,
glowing and blurring,
face smudging as he says,
"but you're safe now."

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

i see him, i hear him,
ripped apart and spray painted blue
by the kids who were fascinated with
the secrets of life,
of death -- by the other children who called me freaky and had knives in their names.

i find him,
discarded in the alleyway.
his chest is heaving,
screeching as ribs rub against the open air,
still chipping away from the point of a dull knife
pressed against his collar and dragged downwards for ragged red.
we match in scars: the the drunken, careless gestures of hand-made strangers.

his intestines shine in the dusty sun,
glistening
as he opens his mouth to a swarm of black,
to every breath pooling in leaking fate,
to the avalanche of my knees bending,
caving to the weight of the call.

the flies gather in this storm,
iridescent-eyed insects itching in his blood,
gorging on decay in the dark of the alley as they
shimmer
in the dawn.
a beam of sunlight carved from concrete lies rose-gold across his chest,
and he wears this sash
dipped in the danger that spreads to my feet.

we match in scars: a breathless incision scabbing,
stitched up red.
we both know this was not the first wound.

but they swore it would be the last.

i make my hands soft for him,
looking to find where his eyes meet mine,

but his fur is bur n i n g
and i'm sick spinning dizzy from the fear that is boiling,
bubbling hot to my head
until it aches and it aches and i only see black.
it hurts my fingers, blistering skin as the blood gets clotted and thick and i can taste it everywhere, every time i try and catch my breath.
i can't touch him, i can't make this pain better with my hands.

i remember the tubes placed between my ribs in dark bruises
deeper than my own eyes,
deeper than the canyons that promised an eternal fall.
and i remember the way he held my face only moments earlier with
a knife glittering brilliant against my skin, eyes suckling on memories --
"you look like her" and it had not been the first or last time i'd seen my own ghost,
walking me across a wasteland,
a desert,
a womb,
looking for some semblance of warmth.

doctor promised me you're safe now
but,
my arm never healed right
even with all the surgeries and metal screws and reassurances.
and sometimes it still hurts if i bend too far,
if i move it too fast,
if i think about his hands on my body,
searching to leave
a path of broken behind.

his bones scream and scream and scream to me.
but i can only listen, tell him
i'm sorry.

i bury him.

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

[presto]

TAKE THE LIGHT
SHADOWS HERE
FROM THIS ROOM

[/presto]

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

lolé
Avalon dibs i think uwu

[Avalon]

AAAAAH
I love your writing & you <33

A C C E P T E D