Episode 100 – The Gift

At the top of a tower,
way up high,
a princess is tethered,
prepared to die.

Our hero, her sister,
fights demons below;
the Slayer they call her,
the ones in the know.

The enemy, a hell god
shut out of her world,
finds a key to re-enter –
a human, the girl.

The princess was ancient,
pure energy, the Key,
made human and grafted
to Slayer family tree.

Slayer swore to protect her,
little sister or not,
so she and the hell god
they battled and fought.

The hell god appears
as a beautiful girl,
strong and self-centered,
all darkness and curls.

This beast shares the body
of an innocent man;
it’s mostly his life,
she comes out when she can.

His weak human mind
drives the beast quite insane
so she sucks brains of others,
her composure regained.

These poor brain-sucked souls
see the Key in true form
and they lead the beast to her,
her sacrifice sworn.

Blood of the princess 
will split open the sky, 
unleashing demons and dragons,
then close when she dies.

The beast can slip back
through the crack to her realm,
leaving death and destruction
for everyone else.

A hell god disciple,
a small elf of a man,
pretends first to protect the girl, 
then slices her skin.

A knight charges to save her,
takes a knife in the side;
the elf throws him over,
though he’d already died.

For he was made vampire
when Victoria was queen;
he killed lots of people,
but is now pretty clean.

With a government inserted
device in his head,
he no longer harms humans,
fighting demons instead.

Helps the Slayer, can you imagine,
he’s killed two before,
but this one, she’s different;
her, he adores.

His love swings a hammer
at the beast’s curly head;
the beating leaves her human
but not really dead.

Our Slayer is a hero,
she’s not like you and me;
when the beast becomes a man again,
she has to let her be.

So a dark wizard takes the reins,
a Slayer mentor true,
and steals the hell god’s final breath;
he’s seen a rodeo or two.

The Slayer scales the tower,
kills the elf with one quick blow,
sees her sister bleeding,
the portal opening below.

The princess accepts that only she,
as Key, can save the world;
her death alone can stop 
what the hell beast has unfurled.

With dragons soaring overhead,
the Slayer remembers a truth:
that her blood and princess blood
are the same, she needs no proof.

So she kisses her little sister, 
and throws herself into the swirl;
her death closes the portal,
returning balance to the world.

    *  *  *

The knight and all who loved her
wept a hurricane that day,
for the Slayer, sister, hero
had forever gone away.

They laid her body in the ground
to rest in a hometown plot;
the inscription on her headstone read:  
She Saved The World

A Lot.

Episode 99 – The Weight of the World

I want to go home,
be a little girl 
again,
away from all this struggle,
see my mother,
see my father.  

A little girl again,
mud pies 
my only responsibility.
I want to go home.

Be their baby 
again,
held tightly 
in arms
that love me,

be protected 
from the pain of the world,
the smallest smudge
of guilt wiped clean.
I like it here
in the mind
of a child

where every day
I play.
Every day,
they love me.
As a child,
my life is sweet
like honeysuckle.

As an adult,
I wear this world
like a costume,
heavy and
tailored.

I want to go home 
again, 
be a little girl.

Episode 97 – Tough Love

Responsibility
lies like a child
in my belly.

Ripening fast.
Full of sorrow
and possibilities.

Am I good?
Gathering my potions
to save or destroy.

Feeding 
what can’t be fed.
Alone.

Heart in my hands.
Clutching, 
    clawing, 
crawling.

Down.
On my knees.
Blind and ashamed.

Shattered mirror 
of my mind.
Not enough to take me.

Episode 93 – I Was Made to Love You

Real girls are spongy.

I bounce off them
and ricochet around the room,
leaving splats of color 
on the walls and the floors,

dripping 
oozing 
spilling

into crevices and corners,

finger painting
the imperfect lines of their bodies,
wiping off the colors
to reveal the skin beneath.

* * *

She was a robot 
for love.
A girl
made of bolts and screws.

The perfect woman.

Programmed to hug,
kiss and caress.
To always say yes 
to his every whim.

Built to love.
Built to cook.
No baggage.
No needs.
Just pure devotion.

Even that wasn’t enough.
Everything he wanted
wasn’t really what he wanted.

And everything she had to give
really wasn’t enough.

Episode 92 – Crush

I am blinded by your memory.
The waters sailed now make me seasick.

Do you think I like you in my heart,
gnawing holes until it hangs in lacy strings? 

Love is strangling me, like a madman in the night.
Like an arrow in my back, love attacks me.

You slam love in my face like a door
and I choose to believe it means you care.

I see you in blue, all soft around the edges.
In the end, we’re all soft around the edges.

I can be good if you need good.
I can drown in good if you can swim.

Episode 91 – Blood Ties

My life 
is a series of memories –
of mom in the kitchen,
of dad’s disappearance.
But they’re not real,
my memories.
All lies.

I wash away 
like a sand castle
as the tide comes in,
leaving broken shells
and scattered seaweed.

Every story I’ve ever told
a myth, 
a cloud drifting by.
Not a girl
who was born
and grew up
and can now die
of sadness for never
really being alive.

Episode 87 – Listening to Fear

sometimes she doesn’t 
remember me

her daughter

a shadow visible 
only in darkness

* * *

A star dies, but its light keeps us company,
its death unmourned for generations.
I feel sad to see the sparkle.

The moon invokes madness, its light hurts my eyes.

I search for Cassiopeia 
on her tortuous throne, 
her beauty unrivaled.

Holding tight to my sanity, the moon passes over.

As we flame through the sky, 
will anyone remember?

Episode 86 – Shadow

He wants to be her knight,
but she doesn’t need saving.

* * *

Boys before
kept her in tears,
kept her in chains.

Holes ripped 
in the world
by their passion.

With you
she feels less 
     pain.

She feels 
     less.