Well, remember that the book we write at twenty bears very little resemblance to the book we write at twenty-five, or thirty - and I', not talking about quality, just perception of self.

The you you filter through changes, grows, shrinks, becomes an entirely different flavour of homunculus, as time moves on.

Sometimes, we hit dry spots.

For a while anything I wrote was a reaction- a choice not to be someone who writes a certain way, or about certain things. There were some shining moments of parody, but mostly, from here it looks snarky and cynical- and not in a good erikaj way. Y'know.

It's like a joke I was playing on anyone willing to read it, and I don't think that's the way to use language to touch hearts and minds. It's mean and doesn't really ring true.

Well, you know where I sit about that one. Be real or be gone is my motto, these days.

I know. Devoured the thread in a week :)

Still working on it, but it feels better than anything I've done in a while.

Untitled

I’m done with this last dram of hemlock. Suiciding in speech. I’m not sure I don’t deserve at least part of this pain. I’m not an innocent. I will wear the scarlet letter. My crime was betrayal, but you betrayed the woman who committed the crime for you.

I built my prison with you. Your sweet lies encouraging me the whole way. “I’ve always loved you.” “I’ll never get over you.” “My greatest regret is hurting you.” Lies thick on the ground, stretching all the way back so that I almost can’t see what the truth was or is.

Almost. I’ve bitten the poisoned apple now, Eve’s apple, Newton’s violent moment of clarity. I can see the whole of the web now. I know the actual meaning behind words.

There’s some music in it, some sort of harmony. You don’t love me. I love him, your friend. You love me. I love you. You don’t love me? You love her, my friend. It was like Hamlet’s Mouse-Trap, perfectly staged, brilliantly executed. You reveling in her kiss. Him, just behind you for the reveal. Waiting only for my climactic entrance. Gertrude, masking her reaction at witnessing her own infidelity and incest.

You would leave me in this prison. I didn’t begrudge you the freedom, but now you would flaunt that freedom I struggled not to envy you. You would throw it in my face everyday, until my only hope of escape is confession. And still, I don’t. I don’t dare scream the truth and bring down the walls on you, or myself.

But at least I have knowledge now. The liar has power over those he lies to. That was God’s sin, keeping us corralled in that garden with pretty lies, shielded from ugly truth. My sin against you was claiming a little bit of that power for myself. You were a god, controlling my world, shaping my history. I asked if you loved me above all else. I asked for grace, an unmerited favor from God, one grain of fact, a tiny slice of power. Yes or no. You couldn’t even grant me that.

The serpent is my only companion inside these walls, but she whispers the power of the actual. She’s shown me how to molt from the flesh you touched, the flesh that willed itself to believe, and become new again. Showed me how the eyes turn cloudy and scale over, but that the scales fall. She tickles my ear to ignite the spark and says, “You’re becoming more, your skin is hard and won’t stretch. Can’t you feel it constricting and itchy against your soul?” A fork-tounged beast has more grace than my false god.

I’m not perfect. I can’t conceive of what a perfect person would do, anymore than I can imagine what a believer would do. So, I will do what I have to. I will die so that they can carry me out of my cell. Some may mourn her, but the serpent and I will smile, clean in our new skins.

Our little jail will stand; I think you may have need of it soon. I know the old and new lies you’re now telling her.

Aaaand I killed it.

No, no - I got hijacked into AIM with Laura Anne Gilman. We're talking about books and piano players and furniture.

Brain is focus over there.

But this is a first draft, yes? You need to spellcheck it.

And it's vivid, also passionate - but I'm only getting the edges of what it's actually about. Personal with metaphors, or is it referencing an existing story?

Yes. Very first. Written last week, looked at little until today.

Personal, with some things explicit, that were personally implicit. I'm sure I'll have to cut a little deeper to get it where I want it, but I'm poking to see where it hurts.

As I say, it's very vivid - but my own feeling is that it's still very oblique.

Which is fine, if you're writing it strictly for you. As a member of the readin audience, though, the oblique can be a bit of a barrier.

No you're right. Again, still having trouble with the naming of things.

Yep. The question of obliqueness becomes the limit on ithe piece's accessibility to the reader.

Aw jeez, I sound like a frickin' writing instructor, or something.

I swear, I am NOT trying to sound pompous....