Reveries of Heresy

they worship aesthetic transformation, a  Princess Diaries  reveal: frizzy mop, smudged glasses tamed and slicked into silky crown, painted eye frames. the ugly duckling blooming into swan. but what if the swan was always her beginning— unpolished, unbidden? at the irony, my frayed eyes can’t help but sigh— don’t they realise the ugly duckling was the swan, all along? in her bold, brash,  waddling defiance , in her wisdom, her weight, her raw breath; unravelled, unlaced. but they inscribed control under the mask of evolution. an imposed metamorphosis mistold as becoming — a chrysalis carved to  constrain , not to release. to be loved, she blurred her silhouette, whitewashed into a filtered mirage, a polished v ase — admired by all, but estranged from her own  wellspring . to be seen, she had to vanish— isn’t that the softest violence of the ugly duckling’s fate?

In the abattoir’s chambers, wild bay horses splayed on metal benches, eviscerated innards blooming with maggots— purified into white paste, rammed through sieve. The scrawny foreman collects it in a scarlet bucket, devours me with his eyes as he slurps the serpentine offal— spoilt, unflinching. Below, Kronos gorges pain, swollen with lust, leering. Above, Wisdom dwells between  the living and the dead. ——— My face, a cartographer of trauma manifest: nodules brewing under the surface, rising up the middle-left arc, from chin to nose to eye— screams smoulder in the womb’s hush, psyche smashes glass— relentless, to break free. Just when a brute latches onto my core, I burst forth through a narrow gape. The shards of window glass pierce my belly as I writhe loose— the price of deliverance, a rite of passage to unleash the flaxen-haired girl, barefoot, linen-clad. ——— The abyss beckons. The great white shark, the colossal Stygian jellyfish— hunt me endlessly in the inky underworld. The ...

I offer my love as a song: an opaline crystal illuminating a cave, a mirror catching the glint of your unspoken secrets, a still pool reflecting your soul, all dressed in the gossamer veil of a gentle Cancer moon. And if you are ready to receive it, this is the quiet rhythm of love you hum: a steady log covered in moss and wild flowers, an oak tree sheltering birds, butterflies, and worms, rooting its unending tenderness in woodland soil. But for now, I’ll wave to you in my dreams, hoping one day you’ll see me, as I see you. And if that happens, if ever your realm grazes mine, know that I would cradle your baby as my own. You can pass me your phone for safekeeping, and I’ll gingerly tuck both of ours in a shared haversack, hidden within my grandmother’s home.

E go: Oh baby— how I’ve tried to kill you, so many times. Tried to stab your heart, so you’d never grow into me. Tried to spare you the agony of this wretched existence. Yet you’re stronger than me. Stronger than the world. Stronger than the forces that tried to eviscerate, engulf, erase you. Baby: But what did I ever do? I only saw the darkness, heard the curses, smelled the rot they hid in silence and smiles. And I became the vessel— the darkness, the curses, the rot— they buried in my bones because they couldn’t bear it themselves. Ego: I know. I know. They made me believe that was you. Until I realised— we were only mirrors reflecting the truth they refused. Baby: Then protect me since no one else could. Carry the grief of ancestral shame— a thousand lives exiled— and transmute it into truth. Ego: I never asked for this— this burden. I resent this. I resent you.  I won’t lie and promise I’ll never leave you again. But I will try— to witness you, to honor your truth. Baby: I’m d...