exsanguinate | issue 1.4 excerpt

me and i

Some things are glorious. Simply glorious. The glory astounds me. Speechless. My heart beats quickly. I cannot breathe. Nauseous, dizzy, almost gasping, struggling, grovelling on the wet floor, grappling with myself, I wait. Wait for air, wait for blood. Wait for life, for death, for escape. Wait for courage: wait for the most glorious thing to appear. I think, I believe--perhaps, I am mislead--that it is coming, that it will come.

Pounce upon me in the night. Please. Grip me. Tightly. Tear me. Shred the living life out of and back into me. I beg of you, please.

I stalk it as it stalks me. By its vicious stealth, its captivating deception, I am entranced. Upon its supposed power, I feed, I strive, I survive. Within its infinitous halls, I lurk, crawl and pray, sucked into its cluttered emptiness, sunk into its frightening flesh. Glorious. Its existence, surely I must overestimate; the battle, surely I must exaggerate.

It is born in and of darkness and fills all the holes with a nullifying light. It grows for the most part on something I feed it--oh God, how I need it--and it devours me for all I have and hope, nibbling on me from the inside out, gnawing at my every flesh, every thought, every emotive motion. It is starving and so am I. It thrives in my emaciation. I am becoming hollow of, and yet not of, my own choosing. It dwells, buried deep and yet so close to the surface, in its coffin, alive with madness, hidden, desperate, hungry: it dwells in my mind. Beating only in my ears. Bleeding only before my eyes. My closest friend and my darkest enemy. Ripping only through my body. Strangling only my throat. Cutting out only my heart and drinking only my heart's rich, red-rose kisses. It, in all its gracious and glorious beauty, is draining, suffocating and killing me. Glorious.

Whose mercy will save me: its or mine? I wonder. Am I being sacrificed or saved? A thousand maidens and princes, a thousand armours and swords, a thousand knights and sorcerers, a thousand untimely kisses, broken promises and false intentions, could not save or sacrifice me now. Blinded by the steam, by the hotness, blinded by my confusion and misery, disillusioned, I cannot remember who slashed my wrists: it or I?

Glorious.

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