Tag: moamiswriting

so I was on the bus today and just as I got up to press the stop button, something hissed behind me. I’m not talking cat hiss here. the sound that emerged behind my back was a lioness-worthy almost-roar. it was terrifying. I had to know what it was.

and of course I turn around, ready for everything because when I entered the bus, there was definitely nothing and nobody there that would have been capable of making that sound so what even could that be – 

an old woman. just an old lady, and she looks at me. I swear I didn’t notice her when I got in. the bus stops. the doors open. I step outside and turn around, and there she is. I have no memory of what she wore or what her face even looked like, except for one thing: her eyes. bright like a young woman looking at me, not an old lady. I am unable to move. she stares at me, and then she says:

“don’t trust the little children.”

the bus doors close. the bus leaves. 

I stood there and it took me a good minute to put myself back together. until now, I have no idea what entity I met there, and maybe I read too many books, but I sure as hell will not trust little children or old women any time soon.

And here you are, twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-sixsevennine, a two before your age and a zero in your mind. Grown, they say, but growing you are. Adult, they warn you, act like it, but you just learned how to become a catastrophe and now you don’t know whether you’re a bonfire, the roar of a hurricane or the sobbing of the sea at night. You’re so painfully young and the world thinks you old over the fear nesting where feathers were supposed to sprout by now. It hurts, love. I know it does. Everything’s so large and ancient and full of years,  or it’s younger and glinting with more ferocity already than you think you could ever be. And you feel like your era has passed, mouth purple from biting into the air that is all breath and no answers, but listen. There’s no path. There’s no siren when you stop to reach for the petals of a flower you’ve been looking for since you were a child. There’s no punishment for a pen in your shy fingers and paper that was crafted just to hear your words. There are so many lovers waiting for you, lovers made of flesh and bones or ink or music.  There are entire continents of dust waiting to be left in your wake, and it doesn’t care what you’re coming for. It just knows that one day, one day, it gets to rise around your steps. You’re so lonely that it tears you apart, and you’re so painfully young and afraid but love, you are only just growing. 
The stars are lovely tonight, don’t you think?
You’ll make it. There’s enough time to come.

Academia and science are basically just asking a lot of questions, finding maybe one answer once, thinking that you know nothing compared to everyone else while everyone else thinks they know nothing either, and citing your goddamn sources. 

“Being dead is terribly boring,” said the woman. She was staring up at the ceiling of the Underworld, or what would be the ceiling if something like that existed in an infinite realm like this. Nevertheless, a reflection of the earthen moon shone over her head, and Hades sat with her when he couldn’t bear the crescent curve of her mouth anymore.

“I cannot bring you back,” he told her as gently as he could.

The woman nodded. The long dark curls on her head trembled with the motion, and Hades thought that he could have loved her in another lifetime. “I know. I am not asking you to do the impossible. But I still wish I could see the world again, just – just once.”

Maybe he did love her, in a way. Like a brother, maybe, even if he couldn’t be one of the sisters she had been taken from. The moon wove silver waves over her honey-warm skin. When the woman moved, her head drowned out the moon and a halo of light ringed her wild, terribly breathtaking hair.

Yes, Hades thought. “I cannot offer you much,” he said out loud, watching her mouth tilt upwards with pleasure singing in his bloodless soul. “Maybe once every few decades. And only from far away, you may see them, and they will look up at you and the darkness you bring.”

The woman looked at him. The sliver of light reappeared by her lips, drowning them in jewels. “Will they be afraid?”

“Always. It is who you are.”

“But they will look? They will see and so will I?”

Hades stood. He offered her a wisp of smoke, fingers igniting red when she touched her palm to it. “I promise,” he told her, and he wanted to reach and touch and let her know that one day she would be as loved as she was feared. But her eyes were hard as onyx, and he did not dare disturb the hope shining underneath. “They won’t recognise you, and you will be as rare and miraculously terrible as a god to them, and your name will be Eclipse from now on.”

The woman rose, and she bowed her wild, wonderful head to him. “I am forever grateful to you.”

“I will await your return, my dearest Medusa.”

Reasons why I do anything in life:

– need to do this or I’ll die

– I’m good at this so watch me be fantastic

– I want to be good at this so look at me becoming obsessed with it

– sounds interesting, let’s fucking do it

And my personal favorite:

– someone told me that I couldn’t do it