Messiah.

All I can see is peonies. Tattooed in the backs of my eyes, batting wonders. They're ... crushed, to taste. Sublingual teas dancing on my tongue. They're between my toes and underneath my nails. I can feel them on the tips of my fingers. On my walls, hanging from my bed - painted peonies. In black and white and every shade of purple and pink. I want to know their scent ingrained into my skin. I want my pores to fucking soak out peonies into the sheets while I sleep. I want to know those flowers intimately and thoroughly, and to let them deflower me.

--

"I always thought I'd make it to 33 and tap out. You know. Like Jesus."

"You are the farthest thing from holy."

"Do you find me despicable?"

"You're my best friend. I'm biased, baptized by the belief that there is good in you. I can hold the dissonance of thought, a candle that burns for you. I'm conditioned to believe that we all have the capability to do and to be good. The rational side of me says that regardless, 'good' and 'bad' are entirely subjective and up to individual interpretation - and therefore cannot exist. So it's in this way that - yeah. I can still be your best friend. Or a good friend. Or bad friend - fuck, take your pick. Maybe a better friend would be better to you."

"Nah."

"Eloquent, how like you. It's weird that you care. I hadn't pegged you for an ego."

"I want to be liked."

"You do, and you don't, and the dichotomy of your internal struggle is beautiful and fascinating and I think that's why I enjoy knowing you so much. Besides, being liked and being likeable are two entirely separate art forms."

"I sound like such a little bitch."

"Yup. Whiny Jesus. I'm going to call you Messiah from now on. Hey - Messiah, happy belated. You've got what, one more year left on that clock now?"

"Wheeeeeee."

"Cmon, let's go drive around and listening to Killing Joke."

"Just like that?"

"Yeah. You know me. Cut and print."

--

These halls are marked with all sorts of shadows, fingerprints painting doors, a whorled vortex of contagion leaving its memory between paint chips - palms worth reading that scream out soliloquys on doorknobs - and there you go bleeding at the knees and staining my floors. I can taste you when I'm dragging my hands all over these walls, reading and writing over top of stories - I'm incurring ancient curses carved out in Braille - the misfortune of touch.

My fingertips are made of dirty petals.

--

'You know, I think even disaster has to follow a divine rhythm of sorts.

I mean, you have to think that even our own sense of time is so warped that ever 4 years we have to throw in an extra day that we can't handle, but blindly accept. There are people who are born on a day that only sometimes exists. Imagine what it's like to be born on a day comprised of all of that leftover time we just didn't know what to do with.

Also did you know that all it takes is 7 years for every cell in our bodies to die off and replace themselves? That means every 7 years we aren't even the people we once were. It's funny that our bodies have the physical memories of a credit report. That those things just fall off of us. Furthermore - technically atoms never touch, so all we're losing is the memory of being almost touched.

I do have to believe that it follows some sort of pattern, and maybe our downfall is that we simply don't live long enough to spot the consistencies in said pattern.

What really bothers me is that all of my favorite numbers are not Fibonacci, but still follow the pattern of Fibonacci. It makes me feel like I'm off by just one dimension.'

--

Even echoes dissolve and that is the beauty of their charm. The impermanence of that which there is. That over time, in a mindless and expansive void, they grow quiet, only to cease their existence, eventually, and maddeningly. From fervor, to quiet, to an absolute nothingness, that which is even louder.

So excuse me if I scream a little longer.

--

'Happy second-to-last birthday to you, Messiah. Pardon my time-travel. I know, you know, we know what ties you to your despicable and deplorable crimes. A loving ligature, charge cords and exhausted and expired bonds. Broken hands. Torn ligaments and skinned knees leaving permanent stains in the carpet, because some things deserve to happen forever. Your body is a vessel for carnality and evil deeds. Your mind is a dangerous playground, a carnival of deceit - characters, masks, uncanny apologies and roses. A dissociation of chaos. A dissonance of truth.

You sought salvation and prayer at the foot of a sacred statue and even she chased us away with a gleeful and unearthly scream. But me?

I see the best in everybody. So I will rest at your feet. I will gently pry at your scars, picking out the person I know you could be.

It is my birthday gift to you, Messiah. My belief in you.'

- SNAKEGIRL.