Etching

Her pliant fingers traced the ink-black epitaph on her left forearm; carefully, conscientiously. Hesitantly?

After all was said and done (ironically, not much activity on either front—she was consistently paralyzed by characteristic indecision), she was a creature animated by pure hesitation. Her anxiety palpable and daring enough to ambush her ever-frayed nerves and send them dancing. Dancing perhaps too kind and kinetic a concept; her flayed psyche so adjusted to this timeless choreography of stutter-stepping toward the edge of oblivion but always, and this was damn key ladies and gents of the jury, stopping before the fall. The bondage of lethargy, the weight of inertia, prevented her from advancing from what was and towards what could be.

Sweet Andromeda, break your chains. Abandon the rock. Cetus comes to devour you.

Devour. Yes. She hesitated reaching the last loop of the flourished ‘r’ in her tattoo, acting as if the sterile needle had scalded her skin mere minutes ago, the actual syringe-to-skin assault actually a memory dated back years and years. Devour. Her branding felt like marching orders for all monsters and minstrels alike. Devour. The word evaporated in her mouth, the wide vowels stretching her cracked dry lips, blooming red. The stain on her lips couldn’t be replicated, a middle finger to the mass production of cosmetics—she was born with it, so you can go and fuck your maybes.

Devour. If you say it fast enough, it seemed a shorthand, a mumble of a newcomer to the language: Devour her. The more appropriate marching order for those monsters, those minstrels. Devour her, they were told. Devour her, they did.

Beautiful Andromeda, don’t expect Perseus. Traffic on the open plains; Google Maps has no alternative route, I’m afraid.

The fear swaddled itself within her chest cavity. ‘That asshole is a sucker for an entrance; he’ll be here just in time.’ Wait. Hesitate. (If you say it fast enough, it seemed a shorthand, a mumble of a novice to the language: He’s late.) Just late. But he’ll show. Tardiness is good enough for the leftover pound of flesh that’s been flossed from the incisors of sure slaughter.

If you say anything fast enough, it can sound justified. If you do anything fast enough, the court of public opinion will justify it for you. Privilege gives you that fast pass, play the hand, after laying that hand where you will—cash in that ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card. Speak your narrative first, but don’t feel too pressed to do so in all your high octane, expeditious speed because, as all heaven and hell knows, she may never tell hers at all.

Devour her. Devour her as your sweaty hands devoured the fabric of her too short skirt. Devour her. Devour her as you devoured her bruised and blossom-red lips, while the open night air devoured her pathetic whimpers of “no no no please god no...” the only witness a God who would uphold the sanctity of your utter fucking bullshit because he is a God of privilege, of destruction; the God of New Testament who now dabbles in matters of dilemma and destruction, because the God of creation and love was so 27 books ago.

Devour her. Devour her as you devoured every bit of her identity. Chained to the rock, she was easy to engulf and absorb into your conscientiousness. Chained and rendered motionless from the press of your indecent intention against her naïveté of the law, of the knowledge of all good and evil which spits this fundamental truth: she is her body, and her virginal form has been offered to the maw of a ravenous and insatiable beast.

There is no Andromeda. There is only Cetus‘ full stomach (for now). There is only Perseus’ good intentions.

There is only a stain.

She traced her own ink stain again, her maneuvering down the loops and lines almost surgical. Her movements as precise and meticulous as the assertions made of her character.

“You had to see that look in her eyes. She was fucking hungry for it, bro. She didn’t have to say anything. She was begging for it. I mean, fucking look at her.”

Look at the rock. The pink blush stain almost indiscernible. Lay here Andromeda, lay here a woman who waited, who suffocated her screams and nullified them in her windpipe. Lay here a woman who thought her hero would come.

Lay here she who was devoured. The chains are left in place for the next sacrifice at dawn, another spectacle for us to tear into, our fangs gnashing and gnarling and drowning out the cries of another maiden we screamed, “Siren!”

And believe me darling, if you hesitate, you enter a club in pique-recruitment season. It is the hesitations of victim, would-be victor, and the audience that await with bated breath for the climax that prolong the show and keep the playbills stacked with big names and breakout stars alike. This stage does not discriminate; it welcomes all who dare to dance and flirt with the void.

If you stay still long enough, perhaps you will be called onto that very stage, and you’ll earn the right to don the ebony inscription that welcomes you to an inclusive fraternity of those who were, and no longer are.

“Devour” the stamp will read. You smile, all cracked lips and shattered soul, and you look into the eyes of the leviathan who does not look into yours. He simply does as he’s instructed; he does as tradition compels him.

“Devour”. As he follows suit, you do so as well. You devour the salt, not of the earth, but of your tears and of his sweat. “Devour.”

The Word says “Eat of my flesh and have eternal life.” And in infamy, you both live: he the one who ate, you the one who was fodder to the demon and his cull.