if you could only see yourself the way i see you
Lilith
Eels slithering in your rib cage. A wet nest roosting in your entrails. Slippery fins coiling within your corpse, feeding
in the shadows.
I hadn’t realized how much I missed this.
Home again, home again . . .
There’s a part of me that’s glad to be back. I’ve been spending more time up above than down below. I was beginning to forget
what it’s like to be divested of flesh. To be me.
Never lose sight of yourself, Lilith. Rules to live by. Never forget who you truly are. This is me. This is who I am. If Jordan
can’t accept that, well, then . . . he doesn’t deserve me.
I wonder what he’s up to right now. Probably moping.
This world above is yours—all yours—but soon, when your time comes and you return to this soil, down you go, sinking, stripped
of everything that you call your own. All that is left is your darkness, that anguish, the very ash you corroded your own
soul into.
What a perfect paste to lap up.
That’s when we’ll meet again, you and I, where I’ve been waiting, where we’ve all been waiting, with a devil’s patience. Come join us. Hop on in . . . The water’s fine.
I am not touched by light, translucent, transparent, but palpable. Present. In your own oceans, there are creatures that exist
outside the sun’s reach, harboring in the dark.
I am not graced by God’s light.
Think of myself like the hydromedusa—that deep sea jelly radiating in innumerable tendrils, an invisible sun, much like its
Greek namesake and its serpents.
That’s not exactly what I am, but it’s close enough. You get the idea. Maybe you don’t . . .
You know what? Never mind. Maybe it’s best you don’t see me. Ignorance is bliss, especially down here in the dark. Trust me,
you probably wouldn’t like what you’d see.
No one ever does.
I find warmth inside those who plummet. Simple shimmers of soul still clinging to your being. Those last scraps of humanity,
so sweet. There will be a feeding frenzy, all the others rushing for that warm morsel. I’ll devour the last lingering bit
of yourself, absorb it until it’s my own, until there’s nothing left. Nothing but cold again, as the screams linger.
It’s in the dark that you’ll find me, find all of us, feeding in the void we all call home.
Look at me now. I’m winnowing in the ribs of a particular sinner, pecking at what’s left. There isn’t much to this one, let
me tell you. Gristle and—
Did you hear that? That wasn’t just me, was it? I could’ve sworn I heard something.
Heard him.
Jordan.
Sorry, I was distracted there for a—
There he is again. His voice calls—I summon them—a bell tolling. It shakes me, so loud it distorts our form. Where did he come from? There’s no possible way that could be—
I call upon them.
At just like that, I am yanked
up
up
and
away.
Jordan’s voice pulls at us. Draws us in.
I bind them to me.
Plucked. I am a flower uprooted from the soil. The world is now a blur, cast across a vast expanse, an endless stretch of
flesh, of time and space, until we find ourselves—
Here. In Jordan’s apartment. How did I get here?
Where is he?
There is fire all around. The room is burning. Flames pour forth from the center of the room, a ceaseless barrage of black
light and smoke billowing from a hydrothermal vent. This fissure emits such heat, plumes of roiling light, it’s blinding to
bear witness to.
I can’t look straight at it. It’s far too bright. I feel so exposed. So vulnerable.
I have no host.
We are me.
I have been divested of any flesh, free from my vessel, lost and loose in this plane. There is nothing for me to hold on to,
no body to filter into, unmoored and naked and afraid.
I don’t like this feeling. I don’t like this feeling at all. I’m so . . . so exposed.
I summon them . . .
The fissure within the center of the living room hisses even louder. It has Jordan’s voice, this sibilance of it distorting
the air all around. Vibrations are everywhere, in the air.
I call upon them . . .
The light intensifies. I am drawn toward the center of the room, even as it burns. The very proximity to its brilliance incinerates
what’s left of me. It will scorch right through.
I bind them to me.
The fissure shifts. Cracks open further.
It turns. Moves.
What is it?
I see a silhouette. The light emits from a man. He’s on his knees.
Is he praying?
Summoning. We’ve been called forth by . . . by . . .
Oh, Jordan.
It’s him. Just look at how much he burns.
He’s so beautiful.
He kneels on the floor. Sitting within a circle of salt. As if that will save him. All these paltry parlor tricks, learned
from books crudely written by men who never knew any better.
But this is different. Something has changed. There’s power here, even if his hands are unsteady. He doesn’t know how to control
it, control himself, from the looks of it.
He’s burning. Blue butane flame.
There is light. He is opening himself up even further. Cracking his rib cage back.
Look how stunning he is. Look at the darkness within.
The living room is full of light. Blinding. The sheer intensity of it, the unbearable brilliance of his blackened soul. I’m
burning under the beam. What is happening to him?
What is he doing to himself?
I summon them . . . I call upon them . . . I bind them to me.
Jordan cracks himself open even further. Look at how open his chest cavity is. Look at the blinding light. It seeps out from
his rippling ribs, every exposed bone oscillating in this burning inferno that just won’t stop pouring forth from within him.
Such a volcanic soul. He has ripped open the gates of hell.
Look at it. It calls to us. All of us.
Others will come. There will be many, too many, all of them eager for a taste.
I won’t have him all to my—
Too late. They’re already here.
I’m not alone. Shadows writhe all around.
Not shadows. Tendrils.
The living room is teeming with demons. Look at them all. An effervescent nest. The slickened twine of limbs. A phosphorescent
knot. Far too many to count, all clustered together, roiling over top each other in a wet struggle to find a warm place to
settle. Entities desperate for a vessel. Slithering about the room. In the corners. Along the ceiling.
Everywhere.
I see them now. I’m one of many, legion, all of us clamoring for Jordan. He called us all here. Doesn’t he see that? Can’t he understand what he’s done? How powerful
he is?
He is a doorway. A floodgate. A gorgeous chasm.
They all want in. Of course they do. Who wouldn’t? A catch like that?
We all draw near. Limbs pressed against one another. Crawling over top of each other. Drooling. Slathering at the adorable
morsel before us all. We all want him. Want in.
Just a taste of his soul. A simple lick. We are demonic moths to a righteous flame, delirious with need. The closer we get,
the more we burn. Our wings singed.
The entity next to me lunges for Jordan before the rest of us can, eager to try and force its way inside, through the chinks
of Jordan’s body, and take root.
It doesn’t get far. Cock-blocked by a circle of salt.
Can he see me? Right in front of him? Reaching out? I’m here, right here, writhing amongst the mass of desperate entities, mere inches away, so close to his skin.
What he does to me, I can’t even begin to describe.
He makes our head spin.
Jordan’s not merely playing with fire, dabbling with things he doesn’t understand . . .
He is a fire. An inferno. See how he burns.
What adorable morsel is this?
If only Jordan could see himself the way I see him.
The darkest lodestar, a human heliograph, emitting the brightest, blinding light.
His chest cavity is on fire. Pure fury. Rippling vermilion flames rise up from the ribs, licking his skin.
Light pours forth from his eyes, cast in every direction, burning everything in its path. Even burning me.
Jordan is our pharos, the black lighthouse to guide us all. To draw us in. So bright, it blinds me. Burns straight through.
I’m nothing but ash now. Dust to dust . . .
Oh, Jordan, do you know what you’ve just done to yourself?
There’s blood in the water now.