Do not confuse my kindness for honesty. Do not mistake this sweet spun fiction as anything more than a balm for the hurt. Darling, I am lying through my teeth. I am naught but a dark and terrible thing, opened wide for the world to witness all my horrors. Not unlike a mausoleum. Yet, not a mausoleum. I am not filled with death. I am not filled with anything. Sorrow created me. I grew up from a bed of grief and hemlock. I razed myself through the inferno. I stood, the world cracked and popped as my body trembled with resistance. I am the goddess of wrath; Of war; Of chaos; Of furious broken hearts. Who is it that comes to me like dawn on the horizon? All blinding light and shivering roses; All you; All you. Gaze upon me. Please. My hands are warm but my heart is shaking. I haven't been seen in centuries. There is not much of me to know, but if you touch me I shall bloom. If you touch me I shall grow into you- Like violets; Like violence. A sudden stifling, deafening, paralyzing sort of anguish sweeps in. I don't want to be beautiful. I want to be alive. Will you place flowers at my feet instead? Heather for my loniless, Larkspur for my fickleness- treat this body as a memorial. Put me in a gown and set me on a pyre. Oh, and I should burn for this, but I beat on. Wings against the sun, I beat on. Memories like woven gossamer, like damp ink and rain. Only the dust will remember us. You may dismiss me now. I will stare on with rapt attention. Blindingly still, you shine. And I did know you; And I was close to you. But there is nothing more to me than this: The break. I shift, My bones hiss and pop. I am a house settling. I am a home burning . I beat on.