MalumSempur

I generally have a low opinion of psychiatrists. They are common sense at two hundred dollars an hour. But, since everyone needs one, people like me are only allotted thirty minutes to make way for businessmen and housewives. I'm not bitter. I could do without a shrink. My insurance company agrees with me; it's too bad society doesn't. In laymen terms, I am, as they say, subject to change. Means, really, that I'm slightly unstable in the head, but, holy hell, I can be fixed. I don't have anything against the lady sitting across from me, as a person. She's maybe forty, and aging well. I could easily see her as a power mom jogging five miles

Sometimes, I think about John. I grew up in my grandparents' garden. It was fairly large and brilliantly colored in a way Crayola could never compare. I spent my days running through the pods of flowers, jumping from rock to rock, or simply laying on the grass, watching the birds, the bugs, and the days go by. In my childish mind, I thought that God had one day decided to add Eden to Heaven, but accidentally dropped that forbidden garden on the way home. Eden shattered into pieces, and those beautiful shards fell to the Earth. When He saw how beautiful those fragments were, instead of sweeping up the pieces, he decided to leave them there a

I am possibly the only girl you will ever meet who carries around a men's wallet in her back pocket. It is far larger than any I should ever need and hardly fits. My wallet holds everything but money. It holds my identity, in convenient card form, and my memory, written out on notes. It holds coupons I will never use and beaten pieces of paper, receipts gone through the wash. My family, my friends are in my wallet, folded into 2.5" x 3". Phone numbers, addresses, names. My laptop is a ten pound cell phone, if nothing else. I type rather than talk, and it seems to work out well enough; there are no awkward silences between computers. It, too,

I lay; I'm listening to this ungodly ticking. It reminds me I'm alone. I tell myself everything will be as it should, when eternity ends. Toothpicks. He piles them, stacks them. He lets them fall onto the floor and watches as my eyes follow them. I can almost pick apart the individual clatters, the moment each hits the ground. I know he watches me, I can feel it; when he looks amused, I wonder if he loves me. The dogs outside are mean. I try to be nice, but they snap, show their teeth. I tell them that's bad, but they don't listen unless he says it. No one can come in and I can't go out. I don't have any friends here. I tell him that. H

She stared dully at the stake, so menacing and yet oh so sweet to behold. She could almost hear the harsh whisper of its shiny, untainted length, the silent call from some unseen lips, soft and irresistible. It was made of silver, considered inferior to gold in the outside world, but now, to her at least, it was the most precious of metals. A small, pale hand traveled across the stake as if on its own and without thought, stroking it with the utmost tips of her fingers. How she loved it, needed it, and was still loathed to use it. A small sigh escaped her lips unheeded and was immediately lost in the silence of the long forgotten bar

My wings have always been a hindrance. They are mere artifacts, serving no purpose but to loom overhead as a reminder of my divinity. Like iron, these wings have become. Like iron. Like iron, they are my weapons forged, forged to shield, forged to fight, fight with that damned divinity. Like iron, they are to bind me to a god-created, god-forsaken trade. Like iron, they are to stain, to rust, a rust the color of dried blood. They are to give away my weakness, to scream aloud my shame, for not all fallen angels were cast out of heaven. Most fell, love. Most fell. Fell for a man. Fell for love. Fell from Heaven. Such love is like poison;

Sanctuary. Gods, grant me sanctuary. Give to me mercy, forgiveness, respite. Mercy, undeserved but forever sought. Mercy to lessen my burdens; mercy to lengthen the chains; mercy to soften the blows, sharp rebukes, to strengthen my limbs, my resolve. Mercy and forgiveness, forgiveness of sins, however numerous, however repulsive, however twisted; forgiveness for deeds unforgivable. And respite. Respite from a thousand woes, a thousand loves, a thousand lives. Life is my vitiation, savory curse of immortality, an immortality granted only through sorrow and loss. Why is it, kind saviors, that my joy should be traded for grief, bliss for mise