Eating Disorder

One day you eat lemons, because the internet says
lemons help detox. And your thighs could use all the 
detoxing they can get.

The next day you eat cake because you think skinny
could never taste as wonderful as this slice of
ultra moist chocolate layered heaven.

You obsessively weigh yourself, counting down to the
ounce just how much your belly fat jiggles over your
jeans and how much that piece of cake cost you.

You eat nothing. You don't deserve it, you miserable
waste of human flesh and space. Even the air you breathe
is too calorie dense for you and you practice holding
your breath to make yourself look smaller.

Cake, lemons (no fear of scurvy here), air, measuring
tapes, work out videos, sweat and tears of frustration.
You just want to grab a little slice of happiness,
swallow the sun in bite sized pieces until you glow from
the inside out.

You drink nothing but water, you eat nothing but lemons,
wracking your body down by a pound. Need to run faster,
eat better, swallow the diet pills, measure your food
in eighths of a cup for one meal.

Then one day, the person you so obsessively abused,
forgets how to be and simply vanishes into your punished
body. There is nothing left of you, except you. And
you don't even love you.

Disappearing Act

I woke up this morning missing my feet.
Below my ankles was nothing but air,
those two lefties I always claimed to dance with,
the ones too large and flattened,
those feet that I took for granted,
vanished.

By lunch I had lost my hands.
At the wrists I flexed,
stretching invisible fingers toward glasses of milk,
grasping, but not lifting,
dragging knuckles against ivory keys,
simply gone.

At dinner I noticed the hole in my chest.
Oddly misshaped, somehow full of its invisibility,
I touched it with my missing fingers and wondered;
wondered if I was just imagining those tactile senses,
will the rest of me follow suite?
Disappear?

By bedtime I was nothing more than a head.
Resting on a white pillow, dreaming of bodies fled;
wondering where all our pieces go when we fall apart,
aching from lost soles to lost digits,
my head rolled from side to side,
weeping.

In the morning I was gone.

The Skeleton Remains

The skeletal remains of your kisses
clink around my incisors, tickle the
ivory of my molars, tap dance across
my canines.

At night I can hear them, tinkling
like chandeliers in a breeze. I can
taste the bittersweet, hollowed, bones
of them curled against my tongue.

Their sugar melts into cavities of
emptiness, blackening my teeth with
the ash of them. They rub themselves
against my taste buds, reminders.

In the still of your long absence,
all of my teeth have rotted away, wasted
by the frame of your feelings for
me. Too sweetly  bitter to remain in me.

The ghosts of your kisses have replaced
the skeleton of your love. They howl,
but at least the clink of your chandeliers
against my teeth has ceased.

Drowning Sun

The Sun drowned last night.

He followed the Moon through starlit passageways, black hair streaming behind her in waves.

She tripped over galaxies, swaying in the celestial ocean; waiting for the next starry tide to come in.

He waded out to stand beside her; their hands entwined like the constellations.

His lips grazed her still night hair, breathed in the newest scent of her and laughed.

She kissed the lemon slice of his mouth, drinking in the golden lips, a hand coming up to tangle in his wheat field hair.

The stars chattered, their diamond teeth clinking together like spoons in glasses; warning bells.

He lost his grip on her hand, slipping under a crescent wave, drifting out on primordial seas.

She lost him amongst the roiling blackness; holes swallowing the sound of her cries.

It was foolish to believe such moments were endless.

When all of heaven's din was hushed, they found him glowing beneath the mirror of the universe.

He had drowned in the tempest of her skies, lost in the voids of their eclipse.

The Sun drowned last night and the Moon has yet to stop weeping.

1985-2015

I'm going through my Polaroid memories,
sorting through snapshots and old feelings.

I was 12 when I told your father I would marry you.
I always wondered if you'd ever notice me.

I thought about you so much last year;
thought about how I'd like to talk to you again,
bring up old times and start new friendships.

There are no second chances with the scythe.
I watch the reels of tape spinning,
this is such a final, bitter, end.

Isn't it funny? I told your father I would marry you,
and Wednesday I'll watch you return to the earth.

These memories I have are too few, too little,
to make up a proper farewell.

Safety.

Her son won't come home.
His new home is decorated with headstones.
He wears maggots as one would evening wear.
He no longer sings.
He no longer laughs.
He longer breathes.
He can't breathe.

Her son won't be coming home.
What should've promised safety,
should've protected him,
murdered him for holding a toy,
a sandwich, his hands in the air.
He doesn't play anymore.

They murder our fathers
and condemn us for our fatherless lives.
They murder our husbands
and mock our single parenting skills.
We can't run for fear of accusations,
justifications, "precautions."

Her son won't be coming home anymore.
Another Emmett Till for a different era.
Another Michael Brown.
Another Tamir Rice.
Another Eric Garner.

We Can't Breathe.

Would you want me to?

I won't cry.
I keep saying I'll stop.
Maybe I scare you.
Maybe I'm too much.

I blame myself.
Its always my fault...
when I am left.
How foolish to think you'd be different.

They all leave in the end.
Its inevitable.
And I'm always the dust,
settling into the cracks.

I'm different. I admit that.
Was my difference the final
nail?
I won't apologize for that.

I can't help that I love
too passionately. That I'm
crazy. That I long for stars
too far from the earth of my body.

Was it my love that sent
you running? Was it the Cheshire
Cat of my personality?
I can't apologize for who I am.

Would you want me to?

A Fault in Our Stars

These faults are not in our stars;
they do not lie in our falling in love,
but in how deeply and utterly we fall.

The fault in these, our stars,
is simply that we are made of the
essence of stars and not wishes themselves.

The Balloon Letters: Ibrahim

"My father calls me 'youngest son.' He says it with a tone of disappointment, a tinge of shame. His deep voice practically hums with his dislike of me. He won't look me in the eyes and, for the past five years, he won't say my name.

"Its Ibrahim, though my younger sisters call me 'Ib.' They are the only good thing in my life and they will be married out before too long. Mariam will be sixteen soon. Father has already started the bargaining process for her, as if she were a piece of particularly choice meat. It was the same with Farah, my older sister.

"She is the reason my father calls me 'youngest son' and my mother no longer looks at me. Farah, beautiful and radiant as the coming dawn. I couldn't let them kill her. I could not follow them as they dragged her through the streets, screaming for her blood. They called it an 'honour' killing, but there was no honour to be found that day. Only my sister, dead. And I am alive because I am a son."

Mariam and Jinan clambered into Ibrahim's room, their sandaled feet slapping against the stone floor and echoing down the hallway. They held their breath, trying to keep their hearts from leaping out of their chests. Ib was acting oddly lately. He always grew more quiet this time of year, but this silence was punctuated with odd and jumbled bits of nonsense.

He looked at his sisters and smiled. They reminded him of Farah so much. Even now, five years later, he felt the spasmic ache in his chest for her. He still heard her pleas for mercy as they stoned her. Her cries to God as the lash settled across her bared back.

Sometimes he woke up to her screams, his tears streaming down his face. Looking at Mariam and Jinan only strengthened his desire that nothing like that happen to them. Looking at his slip of paper, he silently pleaded that someone, somewhere, remember Farah after he was gone. He could not bear the idea that she be forgotten after he had left the world.

He stood and wrapped his arms around his sisters, holding them close. His father had finalized Mariam's engagement to a man three times her age; the brother of Farah's husband. The brother of the man who forced his sister to undergo circumcision and had her murdered when she was raped. A man who beat her every day for not providing him with a son. He would not see Mariam be killed and mutilated by the brother.

He grabbed his pack, a small black balloon hed been given after a trip to the city inside the front pocket. He would take his sisters some place where they'd be safe and he would send his love, and pleas for forgiveness, for Farah to the starry night sky in a tiny black balloon.

I am Woman, Phenomenally.

Maybe I'm just a little girl in a big world full of monsters.
Maybe I can't stop even a fraction of them.

But in the end, I'm standing there brandishing my sword,
screaming the battle cry that is pounding in my blood.

I have big dreams; a big voice inside my head calling me
to something greater than all this.

The monsters may come. Let them. I may die,
but I'll die fighting. No one can say I didn't try my hardest.

Isn't that what courage is? Running towards the monster,
rather than away from it?

Maybe I'm a speck in the endless seas of humanity,
drifting in and out on a tide of relentless insanity.

A ragdoll, tossed into the fray of the screaming waves.
Another pair of breasts in the wriggling masses.

But I was born to be Joan of Arc; the heart of a lioness,
consort to scarecrow princes and ready for battle.

Let the Jabberwockys come, let them do their worst.
I am still standing, a giantess with my soul painfully alive.

There is more to me, a little girl in a big world,
than could ever be imagined by the seething oceans.

In the words of Maya Angelou, "Phenomenal woman, that's me."

The Dream

They always started the same way.

She was sitting at the table in the kitchen, the round one with the crooked leg that makes the whole thing wobble. She was sipping cold coffee, the taste and texture like sludge sliding down her throat.

"This," her psychologist would say. "is indicative of your fears."

He didn't know what true fear was.

While sitting at the table, coffee in hand, she would watch herself in a mirror. It was precisely at eye level. Sometimes it seemed to ripple, ever so slightly, whenever she would turn her head away.

The dream always started this way.

Though she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw everything. It was as if she were peering through a kitchen window, watching herself struggle to swallow coffee, even as she watched her reflection in the mirror. With the panoramic view, she would watch the door behind her open and the darkness would creep in.

It was thick, like tar and it radiated with heat. It oozed into the cracks in the ceramic floor and pumped from the holes in the violet wallpaper. She would watch herself in the mirror, seemingly glued to her chair with no place to run. She would watch from the window as the darkness congealed into human like shapes and slid across the floor.

"This," her psychologist would say. "is indicative of your relationship with your mother."

It was true that her mother had abused her. That she had forced her to sit at the table, eating cold and, sometimes, rotten food that she had refused to eat days before. Sometimes she would make her sit and stare at her face in the mirror, sometimes for hours. She only did that after she'd beaten her though.

"Look at the bruises flowering on your skin." she'd say, slapping her hard across the mouth. "You look so pretty."

This was normal. For years, she couldn't look at herself in the mirror, except in her dreams. In the dream she was glued to her face.

Usually, around this point in the dream, she could startle herself awake and away from the suffocating darkness. In the quiet stillness of her childhood bedroom she would hug her knees and whisper to the darkness that she would be a good girl.

This was something she had not told the psychologist. She had been living with the darkness for years beyond when her mother had lived. And, when her mother committed suicide in the basement, she had stayed in the house with the corpse for at least a day before calling the ambulance. In the cool shadows of the basement, she watched her mother's body tremble with the weight of sins.

She kept the house because there was no other place to go. And her mother would be angry if she left her behind.

The dream started over as soon as she closed her eyes. Always the same.

She sits at the table. The round one with the crooked leg, all of the world around her wobbling on uneven ground. She stares at her face. Funny, this is the first time she has seen it un-bruised. There isn't even a cut. Why is she staring at herself, when there is no imperfection to make her beautiful?

From outside the room, she can see the creeping darkness. It flows, like molasses, shifting into figures not quite human and not quite alien. Something feels off.

She watches herself take a sip of coffee, slugging it back like a shot. She feels it, like hot coals, slithering down her throat, tripping her gag reflex. She sputters, but doesn't quite spit it all up.

The darkness glides closer and closer; evolving, shifting, changing and undulating. Its hands wrap around her throat, choking her. It slams her head into the table, cracking the crooked leg against the ceramic floor with the percussive resonance of gunfire.

Looking up, she sees her face is bleeding. Bruising begins around her eyes; the years of bruises branding her purple and yellow against the violet wallpaper. The darkness slams her face into the table again.

The table breaks under the force and she feels her face begin to cave. The darkness forces her to the floor and the ceramic seems to swallow her.

Her mother looks at her, smiling.

"Look how pretty you are."

The First Time.

It was the first time I killed a man. It was an accident; that first death. It was completely unintentional. The ones that followed were much more fulfilling, but who can forget their first?

His name was Jack. He was twelve and he had white-blonde hair paired with light brown eyes. He was riding his bike by the railroad tracks that day. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. For him, it was the last.

I was thirteen. Gangly and awkward. I was sitting on the tracks, watching him do donuts and chewing on a piece of taffy. He was getting bored, you could tell by the way he kept stopping to stare down the tracks.

"Do you want to race?" he asked, stopping beside me. I swallowed my last bite of taffy and shrugged.

"Why not?" I replied. He climbed off the bike and we stood on the rails. He cheated, by starting first, taking off before an actual count could be made. At thirteen, this pissed me off and I ran as fast as I ever have. I grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him to the ground.

"Hey, get off asshole." He struggled, trying to shove me off. But I was bigger and I pinned him. Sitting on his chest, I held his head and bashed it against the rocky ground. He screamed only once before he began to seize under me.

His struggling frightened and intrigued me. I continued to sit on his chest and watched his eyes roll back into his skull. I left him there, ostensibly to get help. It was not my intention to kill him. He just shouldn't have cheated. When I returned, his body was pulped by the train, all evidence of my crime wiped away.

Dear Santa,

Dear Santa,
At fifty-three, one would think I was far too old to write you. But even fifty-three-year-olds can have wishes for Christmas.

When you fly into Chicago, this year, could you bring back my husband? I miss him most during this time. He used to help me string popcorn and twirl me under the mistletoe. When he kissed me I believed anything was possible.

He made me feel most alive, even as he was dying.

Please, Santa, if you have any power over death, bring him back to me so we can live another fifty years together.

Sincerely,
Anna.

The Lie

"Excuse me," said a wiry man, his arms full of parcels in festive prints.

"Oh, of course." replied a, slightly, weathered woman. Her arms were also laden with packages to be sent off. Her snow-white hair hung limply and her gray eyes held no joy. She was tired. Tired of the holidays, tired of the loneliness, just tired. She shuffled a little so that the younger man could reach a mailing sticker. He looked a little like her son, Brian.

The last time she had seen him was twenty years before. Or maybe twenty-five now, she couldn't quite remember. She studied the man a little, pretending to be studying the mailing dates so her boxes would arrive by Christmas. He was tall and thin. A Roman nose holding up John Lennon glasses. His sandy hair was streaked with gray and white. His tourmaline eyes were sad, but they still held a flicker of hope.

"Brian?" she asked, looking at him with open intensity.

"Yes?" he replied. If he recognized her, he didn't show it. He had a patient smile plastered across his face.

"Brian, its me. Your mother; Angela. Do you not recognize me?" She felt a tremor of foreboding. It was him.

"I'm sorry. My mother died when I was twenty." He went back to his packages and she left before she began to cry. He watched her leave before he whispered, "Hi, Mom."

Scarlett

It was her lipstick. It wasn't subtle, much like the wearer. It was bright and loud, proclaiming just as much as her words. When she walked in the room everyone stared, locked on her lips as she passed.

"We weren't expecting you this evening, Scarlett." said Andrew, sipping his lavender tea.

"As if I could resist the events you and Alan have cooked up for tonight." she winked, slightly wrinkling her nose. He knew that look all too well. She had mischief in mind, her lipstick staining her lips like bloody leaves and her autumn colored hair free flowing.

She was dressed for battle.

The lust he felt surging through him made their eyes lock and she smiled, again, before she was gone.

"Scarlett," he whispered, feeling out of breath. She had come, prepared for war with Alan, and he was helpless to stop it. Would it always be like this? How long had he been divided between them? Three years? Four?

He followed her through the ballroom, her red dress trailing like a bloody ribbon behind her. She would turn to smile at him, her red lips revealing glistening white teeth.

It was too little too late when he finally caught her. Alan's white suit was blooming flowers and Scarlett's lipstick was smeared across the marble floor. Even the silence screamed with the loss.

The Hospital Room.

The scent of the hospital room clings to my skin like saran wrap to a plate.
Its not too cold or too warm, it is tepid and smells faintly of chloraseptic.
You are lying in the too big bed, your limbs purpled from the needles,
bruises stamped across your flesh like a child's sticker-book.

Your lids are half open, heavy from drugs you would never have taken,
if you were willing. All of you sags into the bed, hidden in folds of too
white blankets and a gown that does nothing to flatter your body.
You look wilted, like a flower in a too sunny window with no water.

Most of what you say comes out in mumbles and indistinguishable
gasps. You are shrinking, but expanding at the same moment. You
look like Death has come to visit you, but has not yet come to claim
you as his. Your eyes speak of fear that he will return.

And I am afraid too. Afraid of the languid look of lost strength in your eyes.
I am afraid of your bony hands, a pale pin-cushion for needles and IV's.
I hold on to you, because you are all the strength I have left inside me.
I hold on, because I am afraid to let you go when you are so calm.

The fight fades from your eyes too fast. The last bit of light fading before
the sun rises. And you are gone far from me before I even have so much
as a moment to say goodbye. Standing in an empty hospital room, your
clothes folded neatly on a too big bed. The smell still clings to me.

Beautiful Merry Oak (fragment)

Her mother called her "Oak." She believed in the power of names and held that when her daughter grew up she would be strong and unbent by the weight of time. She called her "Beautiful" because she had never been called that by her own mother and the taste of it was like honey on her tongue. She called her "Merry" so that she would always smile, despite the pain life often brings.

She called her all of these things and she named her "Melody" because she was a tune to the song she had dreamed as a girl.

Melody was her mother's only child, though her father may have had many scattered across the countryside. When she was just shy of walking, he ran. The arms of another woman seemed to be far more enticing than the love of a scarred teenager and infant girl. Her mother never spoke a word against him; the love she carried for him remained as a silent wish that he would return and she never married.

"My beautiful and merry Oak," her mother would say, smiling in her sad way. Melody would touch the map of her mother's face, tracing scars created by hands she would never see, smoothing the wrinkles caused by a treacherous childhood and an adulterous man. Her mother would kiss her cheek and put her to bed with a worn, slightly torn, stuffed lion, a gift from her father when they met. It still smelled of his after shave, ever so faintly, and she would pretend not to notice the smell of lilacs. It lingered from the many times her mother had held that beloved toy to her breast and cried.

Melody never gave a thought to her appearance. She was a knock-kneed child, a smattering of chocolate colored freckles across her nose and cheek bones. She wore her dark brown hair in twin braids, tied with yellow ribbons, and her eyes were different colors. Her left eye was a very dark blue, almost black, and her right was the green of the ocean preluding a storm, silver flecks of lightning lingering in the depths of the iris. Her mother said it was because she had a trace of fairy blood and, alternately, that she had been murdered in a past life.

"When you were born, my beautiful, merry, Oak," her mother would say. "your hair was the color of a rose and your father laughed. His mother, your grandmother, had red hair and she was as wild as daisies in spring. Your father wanted to name you after her, but she had a name that would stand your pretty hair on end and make your toes curl. She was wild, but she was sour. I named you after the song in my heart, because you gave it a melody."

To Melody, her mother was the most beautiful woman on earth. She had the palest blue eyes, the whitest hair, the veins showing pale blue beneath her, almost, translucent skin. She had a heart shaped face, her almond shaped eyes carrying what seemed to be a thousand years worth of sparkling grief and sorrow. She had a scar across her face, a lash from a heartless father years ago, that split her face on the diagonal. It was thin and pink, a perfect slash across her face. On her right cheek she bore the mark of a ring, a ring Melody's father used to wear on his left hand. Now the ring hung on a tiny chain of silver, almost in homage to the face it had scarred, around her neck.

At fifteen, the age at which her mother had given her life, Melody discovered a love for music and the piano. They were quite poor, but her mother found ways to pay for the weekly lessons, even finding enough to buy a small, second hand, piano. It would not fit in their room, a room they rented in the house of Mrs. Garfield, an ancient and coarse widow from Germany, but her mother was determined that she should have it.

"Mrs. Garfield, a piano would brighten up the parlor. We could put it by the bay windows, maybe put a few potted plants on it. She would only need to practice three times a week. It won't be in the way if we push it up against the wall just over there." Her mother wheedled and coaxed until Mrs. Garfield finally gave her consent, somehow turning the story around so that she came out as the advocate of the idea and Melody's mother the detractor.

They took in extra laundry from the other tenants, even taking in Amos Abernathy's dingy long johns for the washing, though they reeked of alcohol and urine. Her mother said it was because he had lost his wife to pleurisy, but everyone knew it was because he had beaten her into an early grave. She never spoke an ill word against anyone, though Melody couldn't understand why not. Mrs. Garfield was cold, at best; Amos Abernathy was a drunk and a brute; her own father had been cruel, leaving the marks of his wrath across the creamy complexion of her face. Yet, she never spoke an unkind word toward any of them, silently accepting the abuses and the circumstances as they came.

Melody could not, clearly, remember when she made the transformation from child to young woman, but one day, seated at the piano, she realized that she had become less gangly and she no longer wore her hair in childish braids. She had become soft in areas, her body ripening in ways she did not understand. She caught herself gazing into the looking glass more often, patting her hair into place self consciously. Her mother had to adjust the seams of her favorite dresses to accommodate her newly developing body and the young men she had grown up with suddenly looked at her with a hunger she did not understand.

"My beautiful and merry Oak," her mother said, dusting the piano as if it were made of glass and avoiding looking at her. "there are many things you must know, now that you are a young woman. There are men, even those you believe that you know, who may try to take advantage of your age and beauty. They will tell you that they love you, that they will always love you. They will flatter and wheedle, but you must resist them, my darling. You must resist until you truly believe you love them in return. You will believe you do at first, flattered is a close feeling."

The Magic Man: Part I

Sleep now, sleep deep. Soon you will awake and the morning will no longer be.
Soft, sweet, softly. They'll hear your breathing, but not your heart beating.
Soon we will be swept up in the dark of night, candy colored lights to guide the way home.

Celeste awoke in a cold sweat. Her thin shift clung to her drenched and shivering body. The fire in her tiny cabin had gone out and only the faintest glow came from the coals. Tugging on the tattered quilt, she burrowed into the warmth of her bed and tried to block out the sound of the snow falling.

It wasn't that the sound bothered her, but snow reminded her that Poppa was gone and Momma was sick with the fever. It also made her feel nervous; as if there were a thousand eyes watching her every move. If she closed her eyes tight enough, it was summer time and Poppa was out in the fields. Momma would be in the kitchen, the windows flung wide and the whole place smelling of bread and lavender. William, the butcher's youngest son, would be playing on the floor with the kittens and Susan, her youngest sister, would be banging her wooden spoon against the table legs.

"Celeste," moaned her mother. Her voice seemed to echo from beneath the covers, growing louder against the well of her ears.

"Yes, Momma?" she whispered, curling into herself. She imagined her ribs growing outward to cage her within them. The smaller she was, the less chance of being found by whatever it was that seemed to be haunting her.

"The fire," her mother's voice sounded weak now. "its out."

"Yes, Momma." shivering, she eased out from under the covers. She did not look out the window as she tip-toed to the pile of dry wood. If she looked out she was sure she would see the Magic Man from her nightmares.

Squatting, she gathered the smallest sticks first. If she could get those going, with what little flame was left, then she would put on the thicker logs. Poppa had taught her well. Without fully rising, she moved toward the fireplace.

Sleep now, sleep deep. Soon you will awake, my prisoner you'll be.

She jumped, falling backwards, scattering a few coals and dropping her sticks. His eyes were glowing in the pit of the fireplace, shining like two moons in a sea of fire. A small scream pressed free of her lips and the wind rattled the windows so that the whole room was shaking.

She did not have to look out the window to see him. She knew he was there. His long black cape flapping furiously in the bitter winter wind, his long black hair plaited down his back and his black hat dusted white by the snow. She did not have to look out the window, but she was drawn to it. Her eyes met his auburn coloured ones and his smile, sardonic and mirthful, gleamed in the faint light of the coals.

Soft, sweet, softly. Mustn't let momma hear you leaving.

Gingerly, she lifted the latch on the door and stepped out into the swirling white world. She did not feel the bite of the snow against her bare feet or the sting of the wind as it whipped against her reddening cheeks. All she saw was his face and the edge of summer rising behind his black cape.

Writing Exercise: The Statue of Liberty

Phil stood on Ellis Island taking pictures of the Statue of Liberty. It was a fairly
average New York day, nothing too spectacular. In fact, he was already starting to get a
little bored when this oddly dressed couple approached him.

"Excuse me, sir!" said a woman dressed in tie dye extreme, her long black hair braided
with pink and white ribbons.

"We were wondering," said her companion, his beard decorated with bows.

"Yes, wondering!" said the woman, her smile a little too practiced.

"Wondering if you would like,"

"Yes, if you would like to,"

"Join us for a tour!"

They both smiled, which slightly creeped him out.

"What kind of tour?" he asked, holding his camera in front of his chest like it would
protect him.

"Why, a tour of the Statue of Liberty!" cried the woman, her impossibly perfect smile
widening.

"Its only one of the best things about New York!" cried her companion.

"I don't know..." said Phil, backing up a bit. Before he could fully escape, the woman
had his arm and the man was leading the way. They dragged him up to the statue and began
spouting off random facts about Lady Liberty's journey across the ocean.

"This is the entrance right here!" exclaimed the man, opening the door and ushering his
companion and Phil in.

Looking up, Phil noticed something slightly amiss. There were legs. Impossibly long and
slender; and further up was a shapely bottom and a delicately shaped female sex. Even
further up were perfectly rounded breasts and the face of Liberty shone with such sweet
gentility that it almost knocked him backwards.

"Wow." he murmured, completely in awe.

"Isn't she lovely?" said the woman, her grip tightening on his arm.

"Isn't she a goddess?" said the man, his hands coming around Phil's waist.

"Hey!" he cried, struggling.

From the shadows came at least a dozen more men and women, their smiles eerie and their
eyes glowing with lust.

Over powering him, they drug him up toward Liberty's breasts. Securing him so that he
stood before her face, they cut off his clothing. He squirmed and tried to escape, but
found he couldn't move.

"It will all be over soon." said the woman, her eyes seemingly shifting in color and
shape.

Pulling knives from their clothes they began to cut him until a decent amount of blood
flowed. Gathering some into a cup they offered it to Liberty. She drank deeply and,
before they slit his throat, he saw her smile.

The Dragon King: Part Seven

Waking up, Aysel saw the cave split asunder like an over-sized geode.

The Dragon construct lay, shattered, a small distance off. Its underbelly was torn open revealing the inner-workings and beside it lay the body of Emyr.

The land was scorched beyond repair, the caverns shattered. She stood to look over her realm, her damaged wing fluttering as she righted herself. For miles the ground was strewn with bodies; goblins, faeries, woodland creatures. Limping, she moved toward the cavern opening.

Beside a Faery body was a ruby eye and a tiny flower, the only living thing for miles.