The Devil Wears a Halo

Worship. It was sprawled across his features in the early morning sunlight and she shrank from her reflection in his cornflower gaze. He thought she wore a halo but what he really saw was the glow of the golden pitchfork she so deftly hid behind her back.
She knew this.
He didn't.
A whisper of a sigh escaped her mouth and before she could catch it, it fell on his ears.
"What is it?" A gently posed question but she doubted he realized the danger belied in such a query.
What if? She pondered.
What if she threw caution to the wind and let him spy the pitchfork?

I need a man, she would say.
I need a man with a backbone. Being with you is like being with a spineless guppy, all puppy dog eyes and silent agreement when I tell you that you're wrong.
When are you going to yell at me?
For God's sake, when will you finally tell me no?
I want to hear the edge in your voice as you defy me. Just once I'd like nothing better than to feel the heat of your eyes, a fiery ocean of anger only calmed by a stolen kiss in the rain hours later. Don't you realize that all the times I raise my tone it is merely in the hope that maybe this is the time you fight back?
I need you to slow down. To let me set the pace of our relationship. To not say things that I'm not ready for you to say.
"I love you" fell from your lips thirty days after your eyes locked mine and I feel guilty that only I know I was lying when I said it back.
But you painted me into a corner and wouldn't take "I'm not ready" for an answer, so I put on my work boots and trudged through self-doubt to please you. I thought that if I "gave you a chance" in the end I might find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but instead the gleam I saw on the far hill was the sun shining on the mirror of self-reflection. I looked hard at the girl staring back at me, gripped by panic when I realized it was through your eyes and I was fast becoming an undeserving goddess.
How was I to live up to such a standard?
And how do I tell you that you fail to make me burn, that your mouth leaves me wanting something more, something you can never give me? I think of the kiss of another man so long ago; you are sugar when I need salt and sometimes too much sweetness can make me sick.
I realize I am accusing you of being too nice and isn't that the oldest line in the book? I have placed judgment on too many women for me to ever speak those words out loud. I can't bear to be called a hypocrite. For that is surely what I am. I want to say I can chalk it up to naivety, that I had no knowledge of such feelings until they were thunderously upon me, but somewhere deep inside I know that is merely an excuse.
But how to tell you all of this? How to say all my doubts aloud and still expect you to believe that I truly think you are the best man who has ever loved me?
Is it really your fault that you do the things you do or is it because I let you? If you don't know what I want how can I ever place the blame on your shoulders?
I am afraid to tell you, though, because maybe I know that if I do you will eventually leave and for once I'd like to reserve the right to walk out first.
Perhaps I am entitled to issue a broken heart - but then again, one reaps what one sows and I scurry from the thought of dripping mascara and worded heartache scribbled in the moonlight.
Maybe I don't tell you because I am selfish. Because I like having someone. Because maybe if you do as I ask I will resent you for changing into someone that you really aren't, someone you don't even like.
I am not the sort of girl who goes against intuition, pursuing a romance once my heart screams otherwise. But for you, I did, and maybe all of this is actually self-loathing projected onto you, an undeserving passerby, and I'm glad you don't taste the indecision in my midnight kisses.
But can I really say all of this? What am I going to gain? I sit here and feel your fingertips on my skin and I know I won't do it.
And I know you will be none the wiser.

So she let him kiss her and shut her eyes to hide her soul.
But then the time soon came that it was indeed over and she rejoiced in the freedom of her spirit until one day retribution caught up with her.
She watched in agony as one by one the women in her life became victims of heartbreak, their cries an icy chain on her feeling of relief. There were so many murders that it seemed a cruel joke and she could do nothing but gaze on each killing with a fascinated horror.
There was her Cousin, the dark-haired beauty, so loyal in her love for him, so willing to give second chances where second chances were never deserved. She devoted years to the hope of their future.
How it made the one with Freedom weep to see the day he sliced her cousin’s heart in two with a dull knife, as she screamed for him to stop, and he just laughed as she fell to the floor. It was so calculated, so cold, and she lay in the pool of her soul’s blood while he walked away arm in arm with another woman.
And then the Sister of Her Heart, the one who shared all her secrets, was one day finally happy.
“He wants me!” she lauded, but Free Heart knew better than to trust him. His eyes were dark with secrets but there was no convincing her friend.
“His arms are true when I am feeling blue and I know him better than you,” she stewed.
But this time Free Heart was right and so she was there to hold her friend when the fateful Monday came and he picked up the phone to make that most cowardly of all exits.
The Sister of Her Blood spent a year with the one she loved, in a country of palms and sandy roads. He strummed romance on his guitar, crooning lullabies under the starry sky and she knew she had never been more content in life. The year came to a close and he promised meetings on other shores, but the day she sailed her boat to his home and waited to be taken in open arms, he slammed the door of his heart with nary an explanation. She clung to the stern as she treaded the waters of confusion, her added tears almost enough to drown in.
The Indian Princess was sweeter than peach pie in August, and for a while it seemed the two of them were happy. He brought flowers and called her beautiful and said she was his love. She gave and gave and gave, never expecting anything in return, and soon enough he took that for granted. She sat in the corner while he laughed boisterously with the other men gathered around the TV and never took the time to look into her big brown eyes anymore. She realized she carried a slingshot in his World of Warcraft and it wasn’t enough to win the battle. So he left and she cried and threw her flimsy weapon in with the towel.
The Fellow Flight Attendant brought word of a brand new man, tall, dark, and carrying the keys to an airplane. Free Heart knew where this was headed but offered support in spite of her own distrust. First lie – I’m single. Second lie – I have no children. Third lie – You can trust me, I promise. When news of his unfaithfulness reached the ears of the free heart, she was saddened but not shocked at the demise of her friend’s new marriage.
The Stand-Up Comedienne had laughs-a-plenty with the dark-eyed beau she snagged from her past. Regular text-message updates filled the inbox of Free Heart as her funny friend reveled in a new romance. Months and months of midnight ecstasy but suddenly it ended and the comic stopped smiling as she searched for an answer. The reason for her constant grin now eyed the heart of another man and she felt the rays of stunned grief flow through her like sand in a sieve. Doubt and disgust and derision made their way into her heart and she wiped from her mind the memory of his kiss.
The Southern Blonde loved him for two years, longer, really, but he had officially been hers for seven hundred days. Marriage loomed on the horizon, and she felt sure that soon he would kneel on his beautiful knee and propose, her nights filled with dreams of children and picket fences and fishing by the lake. But the day she never expected was soon upon her and with no warning he packed his bags and walked out, putting the ring she thought was hers on the hand of the other woman. She was the one who would get the giggling babies and quaint cottage and catfish dinners. Grief consumed the one with the sandy-blonde curls.
The Pixie Virgins had a charm that led men to their door with merely a wink. They filed out in lines so long it seemed they had no end, and the Pixie sisters had hope that at least one decent man existed among the hoards. But time and again they reached the question the men most wanted answered and when the beauties said no, they bounded quickly away from the sweet-tempered interview. Given the nature of the sisters, though, the men still left marks and it was only a matter of time before the Pixies became scarred for life.
The Childhood Friend stared into his big velvet eyes and fell with no handhold. She was sure he would catch her. He promised with his flowery words that he wanted no one's heart but hers. But the distant beat of drums called him elsewhere and before she could grip the hem of his coat to keep him by her side, he had followed the music and left her behind. The moon shone through the window onto her beautiful, tear-streaked face, and she endlessly questioned what she could have done to make him stay.

Free Heart saw all of this and she cried until there were no tears left. Again she pondered her state of soul.

I am now a graveside mourner, except the coffin holds the broken heart of the man I left and I can do nothing but transform into a cliché, missing what treasure I had until it was gone and now I am alone with my grief and second thoughts.
Is this what I have to look forward to? A lifetime spent sweeping up glass hearts and diamond tears? I wonder if I am due any near misses or if my punishment shall be to lie on the torturer’s table and wait for his heinous tools.
A Free Heart. That is what I have called myself. But now I know that I would give it back to the captivity of love, for such freedom frightens me with its unknown risks.
I think I gave it up too quickly. I can do nothing now to rescind my decision, for the victim of my affliction has been granted a fresh beginning, and even if I made my sorrow known, he wouldn’t hear it over the voice of his new true love. I saw her once, her ruddy, uneven complexion and less than chic style obviously of no concern to him.
Perhaps he sees more depth and truth in her eyes than he saw in mine and I can’t blame him for looking.
All I can think of now is how much he loved me. I felt it even when I didn’t want to and when I tell myself otherwise it is only because I am trying to ease my own pain. Anyone who knew him knew I was his world and isn’t that what I have been watching crumple all around me? The universes of my friends have disappeared and I shudder at the thought.
Why is it that we can only remember the good things when we lose something beautiful we never knew we had? Try as I might I to forget, I realize the qualities he contained that I deemed undesirable were nothing that couldn’t have been mended with a little communication. But it was merely that I wanted a reason to escape and so I harped on what made me unhappy until it was a constant grey cloud and it wasn’t long before he felt the rain.
I do hope he is happy. I won’t deny that I am jealous, that he has moved on and forgotten me and laughs while I cry. I am jealous that she gets to kiss his mouth and stroke the calloused skin of his palm and rest her cheek on his argyle sweater. I feel a deep anger when I think of her name caressed in the lilt of his Scottish brogue, the purr of each syllable like the ocean in the moonlight. I want to feel the curve of his body as our dreams meet dawn’s sunlight.
But those days are over and I face my future with a harrowed fear, sure the chopping block looms somewhere that I least expect it.
I won’t give up on love and I refuse to settle, but I must take to heart the lessons I have learned through all of this. I know that evil men lie in wait, their traps set for the innocent and trusting smile of a girl with bright eyes, and I curse them for their malicious intent.
They are all Devils, every one.

And yet this time, she thought woefully, this time the Devil was me.

In Lieu of the Death of MJ

Another dream...

The house was meager, typically musty, befitting the resident who spent most days in her white-washed rocker. Her graying hair reeked of cigarette smoke even though she had given up the habit years ago; old age clung to her fading flowered robe. Her sleek, grey tabby made his abode the comfort of her lap, gnarled hands stroking his shiny coat as he purred in contentment.
Oak shelves lined the four walls of her living room, the one collection item for the last fifty years displayed in pristine condition, chronologically positioned in perfectly straight rows. Michael Jackson, her one obsession.
I was her keeper, the one to watch over her in her old age, to ease the inevitable coming of death. The dolls unnerved me a bit, but they made her happy, so I dutifully cleaned them each day, polishing their plastic surgery-ravaged faces and dusting the records plastered on the otherwise bare walls. I shuddered as his black eyes bore into mine, the turned up tip of his nose inches from my face as I cared for my ward’s one love.
I never understood why she lived for the modern King of Rock, but I made good money and I wanted to ease her death as much as possible. I thought she was a sweet old lady. That fateful day came, however, when Michael Jackson was the target of death’s skeletal pointed finger, and the tenant of the rocking chair fell into the depths of despair.
Life held no more joy for her, and she begged me daily to end her life. I refused, horrified at the idea that someone could truly put their life’s worth into a stranger, and a psychotic one at that. I continued to protest her supplications, until one day I couldn’t stand staring into her listless eyes and so I relented, asking what it was she wanted from me.
I listened in revulsion as she detailed the best way to kill her, the way that would ensure she succumbed to the same fate as her idol. I was to take her favorite Michael doll, she said, the one with a porcelain face, and the big hammer from beneath the counter.
“Smash the head,” she said, her icy blue eyes wide above the hollow of her cheeks.
And so it was set. I waited until she went into her front yard, one that stood at the end of a cul-de-sac, visible to the rest of the neighborhood. I was nervous that I would get caught, certain that a passerby would see her in the throes of death and as her sole caretaker, I knew I would be the main suspect.
Hurriedly I gathered the necessary tools and waited until I saw the sun go behind the grey clouds and raising the hammer high, I brought it down upon the disfigured glass face of MJ.
It shattered into a hundred pieces and I heard a thud in the front yard. Tears were streaming down my face as I used Windex and paper towels to rid the hammer of my fingerprints and picked up the shards of broken porcelain from the shag carpet.
I heard a meow and through the front door I caught the lime stare of her grey feline, scarlet blood dripping from the corners of his mouth as I realized in disgust that he was drinking the lifeblood of his dead owner. I screamed at the tabby, running towards the yard, skidding to a stop as a black sedan pulled into the drive and a terror-crazed woman got out to help the old lady.
I ran outside, yelling at the woman to call 9-1-1. My yell was cut short as I watched the woman I had just brutally murdered get up from the ground and walk towards me. Her head was patched back together, bloody red lines zig-zagging across her face where the pieces of flesh had magically healed themselves.
I saw malice in her gaze and she smiled evilly as she said in a high-pitched tone, “Someone is going to jail!”
I realized she had filmed the entire thing with a hidden camera, and I knew my life was over.

And then I woke up.

Haunted

She had watched the lithe swagger of his body as he made his way through the crowd. He shouldn’t be able to move like that, she’d thought. Muscle and brawn shouldn’t have such grace. It was as if he contained some sort of magic, like he held an invisible scepter in his hand and commanded the world to fall at his feet. Time and again she watched in disbelief, heralding tangible proof that indeed, the world obeyed.
Not me, she silently vowed. I won’t give in.
She refused to feed the powerful jaws of such a man’s ego, for surely it meant imminent death of pride.
She secretly referred to him as a modern Henry VIII. Females flocked to him, making fools of themselves in an attempt to attract his attention. She knew of more than one woman who would kill for a mere glance of those turquoise eyes.
Please, not me.

But against her will his face returned to haunt her, and for seven hundred and seventy seven days the images had swirled in her dreams, the spicy and sweet and bitter morsels of fantasy. She considered the eight seasons that had come and gone, the two birthdays that had reared their monotonous heads, putting from her mind the infinitesimal amount of lips she was sure had brushed his since he had sauntered into her life.
She cursed herself for a moment as the sunlight cut through the dark shade of her sunglasses, as she watched his panther-like car idle on the curb. She cursed him, too. He knew what power he had over her, no matter that for eighteen thousand, six hundred and forty-eight hours she had wished he might find her attractive. Even now, while he sat grinning at her from the open window of his sleek ride, she wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about her.
“You lookin’ for a date?” he purred in her direction.
She grinned back in spite of herself. Damn his charm. Flipping shut her eight hundred page novel, she rose from bench where she had waited for him. She was annoyed with herself, knowing she had brought the book for his benefit, hoping that he realized her brain housed more than Brangelina fodder. Her inner self rolled her eyes in disgust. She knew the type of girl he liked. And why did she care what this man thought? He would never be more to her than a handsome flirt and she felt her heart squeeze in disappointment.
She opened the passenger door and slid a long, thin, shorts-clad leg in, again aware that she did so to elicit his admiration.
It worked.
She felt her blood rush as his gaze rested on the bare skin of her thigh, hoping – though she knew better – that he wouldn’t notice the quickening of her breath.
She had to make it through the night without losing her sanity.
Or her heart.

Their laughter sprinkled the night air and she ached at the bittersweet ease that wove its way around them; one little tug and she would unravel completely. She was struck with the truth that although he was cocky, underneath his confident façade lay an insecure little boy, one who constantly amazed her as each new layer was revealed, his mind more attractive than his beautiful face.
The proverbial line loomed on the horizon, one that they both wanted to cross, she knew. She felt it in the way his eyes brushed her face, and in the electricity that sparkled across her fair skin.
At midnight he walked her to her door and with a hesitation so brief she might have imagined it, he accepted her proposal and followed her inside.
He lay on the bed.
He offered her the place beside him.
She said she was afraid.
At that word his gaze softened, replaced by what she might have deemed regret if she hadn’t known better, hadn’t been aware that she was merely taking her place in a long line of females. So she pretended she didn’t see his eyes go dark and lowered herself into the crook of his heavily muscled arm.
When would she learn? The question hung in the air as his divine mouth found hers and she was swept into his Herculean grasp.
Oh god, his kiss. She danced in a storm of falling stars, purple night gripping the edges of her conscience, and she fought to keep from drowning in the fiery waters of desire. She had never tasted anything so sweet, except perhaps the kiss of another man so long ago, one who appeared sometimes in the crinkle of laughter around the eyes of the man whose lips she now devoured.
She felt the hum of irony against her skin as she sluggishly contemplated why she insisted on self-torture. Their case had been tried endlessly for two years. They could never be together, she knew that. “Opposites attract” had been the best argument of the defense, but the jury knew that adage would never hold up in the court of her heart.
For some people, beliefs in complete opposition were the icing on the cake, but not for her. Never for her. She was always left with a sticky mess, one she had cleaned up more times than she cared to remember and she wondered where this kiss would lead, wondered if she had the strength to tidy the ravaged heart he was sure to leave behind.
Why did he have to know how perfectly to touch her? Why did her body ignore what her brain commanded, to rip her mouth from his, to tear his hand from her breast? He murmured her name against her neck and she was flooded with the scent of him, blackberry sin and October starlight.
She knew this would change things.
This night wasn’t like the times she had kissed a mere stranger, one who made her body tingle but failed to reach the part of her that mattered. This time she had given pieces of her heart to the man who held her now, in amounts so small she’d hardly noticed and the realization dawned that he had more of it than she had ever intended.
And then his mouth left hers and he was talking, and she fought him as he raised her to the pedestal that so many men put her on. But he was stronger than she and so she went rigid, balancing precariously on the edge of her jewel-encrusted prison.
She listened to his words as they floated up to her perch, I’m not good enough. Don’t love me. You. Are. Perfect.
She didn’t have the strength to combat his misconceptions. Her body was still weak from the heat of his mouth, from the delicious bruise his fingers had left when he accidentally held her too hard, and the lazy gaze of his honey-lashed eyes.
And so she lay down on her golden throne and tried to forget, tried to ignore the melodic lilt of his voice as he said out loud what her heart already knew.
She wished he didn’t have the power to read her so well. He saw it. Her tragic flaw.
She ached to save those who only sought destruction.
But what about me? She silently wept. Sometimes even superheroes need a savior.