Kingdom

I’m walking home. The night sky mirrors my insides. Something is growing, living, breathing. My stomach bloats trying to keep it in. I’m walking like a pregnant lady. And you know how much I despise the thought of being pregnant.

But there’s something in the air tonight. Something that forces the little growing embryo of foreboding that I managed to push under my liver to spring to life and grow to the foetus it’s become.

It’s something about the way the water collects around the little bumps of the road. It’s something about the way the leaves above fill in dark spaces in the open sky. It’s something about the way my heart is thumping so hard, I feel like one of those love-sick looney tunes.

You know I love you right? God damn it, I love you. But I can’t stand the way you make me feel. It’s so real. It’s so grounded, it’s so painful and solid. My love for you is like a giant person. Like a great, big thug of a man. I hate that. Fuck, I hate that. I never wanted to love anyone like that.

I always wanted someone who made me feel surreal. Someone who made me feel like the mystical being I always thought I was. Someone who made me know that I was meant for more than this. Someone who made me feel more than human. I never wanted to be human.
I can’t stand this feeling any longer. The foetus inside, it’s kicking. Violently. I want to regurgitate it out. But it’s too big this time. I know tonight’s the night. I stare at the sky. That big, endless sky that calls out to me. It’s like my name is written all over the little wisps of invisible air that float around me and above me and through my legs.

I’m shaking. I’m shaking. I wish you could see this. See who I am. I wish you could lay my body on an operating table and cut me open. You’d see that under my human organs and my human blood; under my human bones, I’m full of colours and words and flying fish. I’m full of darkness and black holes. I’m a dark alleyway inside, I’m a Wonderland.

There are so many times when I wish you could do that. See everything inside; the hidden foetus under my liver. Take it into your arms and curl yourself up in the space between my stomach and my lungs and stitch me back up. But I know you’d only weigh me down. You’d hold me stead fast to the ground like an anchor around my ankles.

I need someone who will be my helium. I need someone who will allow me to float up into the clouds and find my way to the world in which I belong.

My bulging stomach hurts my back. I see a puddle before me. I can see the street light’s reflection in the water. But as I approach it and look down, all I see is the wet pavement through the clear water. It fills me with so much feeling. My body is exploding; I can’t contain all of this. My pores can’t sweat it out. Tonight, it’s too much.

I breathe out.
I am calm. I’m not panicking. I know my time has come.
I lie down on the moist grass. I close my eyes.



And I see you. I see you see me. I see you approach my tall gates and climb over them. I see you dive into my moat and swim across it. I see you climb onto dry land and stare at my castle walls and scale them.

You jump. You break through the thin film of their world and mine. I see how it rips at your skin and turns you inside out. I see your flesh, raw and red and devoid of blood. I see your eyes hang in their sockets with no lids to keep them in. I see your teeth wide and white with no lips to conceal them. I see your face. You’re so handsome. And as your flesh falls away, I see your skeleton and I see your heart beat behind your ribs. Your heart full of helium, your bones light as oxygen.

I open my eyes and you’re beside me. You lie down and I take your hand. I knew that you would come.

Welcome to my Kingdom.