can i cut in? #2
The thickened beat can’t continue. We’re all about to collapse. And yet, we’re not stopping. The song will never stop. It continues to play, lost in a loop, a limbo, a purgatory in this living room. What if this is what hell is like? Dancing and dancing until you combust.
The bodies twist. Limbs aren’t meant to bend in that direction.
I’m at the heart of this house party, the sacrificial lamb, the lighthouse.
Let’s light up this place.
I call you back, Lilith . . . I summon you. I need you.
I love you.
The beam that breaks free from my body distorts the atmosphere. I’m spinning . . .
Spinning . . .
Spinning.
The wallpaper blisters and peels from the heat. The plaster cracks and crumbles.
The walls shudder. The foundation of the house itself seems to rattle. The floorboards warp. Bend and buckle. The house can’t
hold itself together. It’s all going to collapse.
An inferno. A hell on earth.
The party won’t stop. There are bodies writhing everywhere. Against each other.
Agony. Ecstasy.
Everyone moves in a syncopated frenzy. We’ve all connected to the rhythm. The song is our pulse. Our heartbeat. We’re tethered
together, but I won’t let them in. There’s a wall. A barricade of flesh and bone. Of blood.
You want in? Fuck you. You can’t have me. Yeah, I’m a catch . . . but I’m not yours.
Only Lilith. She’s all I want.
I call you back, Lilith . . .
Pick up. Answer me. Please. I can’t hold them back. I feel them. The rush all around me. The thrust of one after another.
Pushing. Pressing. They want in, but all I want is you . . .
He’s exhausted. About to collapse. He’s let his guard down. Lowering his defenses.
Open himself up.
One finds its way in. They’ll use him, abuse him. Grind his bones down to powder.
They can’t have him.
He’s mine.
Look at him. He’s so pale, lips faint blue. His eyes are bloodshot, burning red coals. There is a delirium in his eyes, an
absence of humanity. The unfocused glare is too much.
Does he recognize me? See me? I’m right here . . . I just have to slip in. Find him.
Jordan’s body seizes, limbs locking. The veins in his neck constrict, tightening like steel cables. His eyes roll into the
safety of his skull, leaving behind nothing but a wake of white. The veins in his eyes constrict, tightening until they burst,
vessels hemorrhaging red.
Now. I need to hurry. Ease my way in. Through the skin.
The spine is a knotted column to wind around, his bones a scaffolding to climb down. His veins offer a tender netting. The
contours of his body are spread out before us.
I’m inside him. Within Jordan.
But I’m not alone. Such tight confinements. The squirm of eels caught in a trap, slithering over top of one another in a wet,
endless knot, tangling into an agitated ligature.
I sense the other slink along Jordan’s spine, coiling itself up tight, a snake squeezing the life out of its prey. This one
won’t go easily. They’ve embedded themselves, burrowing into the soft tissue. I have to uproot them. Make sure there’s nothing
left.
This one burns so bright. We can’t believe you thought you could keep him a secret . . .
You’re a parasite, I say. Let him go.
Why? So you can have him all to yourself? Jordan wants to see other people.
You don’t hold dominion over him.
I pull with all my strength. You need to weed your garden—and here I am, uprooting the most stubborn of invasive species,
tendrils extending into every corner of Jordan.
Mine, they hiss. He’s mine. If we can’t have him, nobody will . . .
Not yours. Not anyone’s.
I pull with all my might. The roots slowly start to give, breaking free from the soil that is Jordan’s body, the sod that of his soul, loosening.
You really think you can keep him? Have him all to yourself? You are weak.
Tendrils relent. They unravel, unspooling. Look at the weed I’ve just uprooted.
He will never love you. He will always be afraid of you. What you truly are.
Jordan thinks he has to punish himself. He doesn’t need to make a martyr of himself.
You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
I incinerate what’s left behind. Scorch his insides. Hollow him out. I make a fire of myself, a glorious fire, feel the flames,
look at them flicker and lick, and spread, singeing the very tissues, burning my every last parasite, every last weed that
has taken root within, decimating his demons, his sins, he has made an altar of his body for his sacrifice, to show his devotion
to me, and I burn through it all, burn it all away, a living sacrifice, until there is nothing left, nothing but ash, nothing
but burnt offerings inside.
Jordan gasps, as if he’s just broken through the water’s surface. The air reaches his lungs. He shouts, terrified. Clarity
comes back to his eyes. The world comes crashing.
I let go, releasing him.
What is it they say? If you love something, let it go? What else do I have to hold on to at this point? I’ve let go of all that I can, no matter how much I want to hold on. Hold
him.
His body gives. Jordan collapses on the dance floor. Can anyone hear him scream over the music? Everyone he’s loved, everyone holding him to this world, all his friends, are possessed.
The blur of bodies is all around us. Flesh coalesces. They’re no longer human, but a river of skin surrounding Jordan and
myself, a closed circuit of corruption, of hedonism, these possessed people merging into a writhing mass of humanity. Of sin.
These people have lost their sense of self, losing themselves to the music, to the demons within. Hell on earth is finally
here. Sodom and Gomorrah. They keep on dancing, dancing . . .
Nobody else can hear Jordan say—“Take me.”
Where, I whisper.
“Home.”