"Tell me again, where is it you stop and the succubus begins? Why is it that once we separated we both ceased to exist?" A vanishing act, in two parts.
Act One: My pitiful proposal right in the middle of study circle was the first arrow to pierce your unfeeling heart. A feat more noble than neon on the periodic table. And you? If you were an element, it would be gangrene, the way you suddenly appeared and immediately created a crime scene. A biohazard more toxic and lethal than Fukushima. You radiated light, and at first glance I was blinded. Now that each individual shard of shrapnel has been plucked from my silver eyes, I see that you were nothing but nuclear. Once a dream within a dream, until you decayed and became a fucking nightmare within another godforsaken nightmare. Like those matronly Russian nesting dolls, but instead made up of demons, until there was nothing left but desolation.
Act Two: What happened to the wide eyed hopeful freshman that I met handing out pamphlets to save the rainforest or feed the world or whatever cause you'd attached yourself to at the time to make your human form seem believable. That same kid with the thick accent from East L.A. who arrived on a full scholarship to help inner city sweethearts avoid the inevitable—getting initiated into the first gang whose leader fell in love with her. I should've known the damage was already done and that you were the greatest con artist to wield a pen as a weapon. You seduced lovesick idiots from all walks of student life. Who knew future doctors, lawyers, and politicians could all be so easily swayed. Either way, you were a lost Latina princess who made men feel like one of your Latin Kings.
What happened to our heroine who refused to be branded like the cattle that would never be found on her plate. She was skilled in every recipe from cookbooks of anarchy. Who knew sometimes even soldiers sold out and became the same sheep they swore up and down 'til kingdom come that they would never be. The very sheep who required shearing and saving from a slaveowner who would rather refer to himself as a shepherd.
Behind the scenes a heavier battle was brewing...a conflict that was as deep as canyons grand, that had way too many layers. Our waxen eyed protagonist met his Waterloo in a spicy Puerto Rican seductress. Together, they personified academia, every interaction either ended with evacuated lecture halls or underneath ramen-noodle-stained-thrift-store-bargain-basement sheets. Spectators sighed at the sight of these star-crossed young lovers like modern day Montagues and Capulets. Together, they were an unstoppable machine.
Lovestruck or love's fools? The line between their overlapping identities faded with each day. They put blood, sweat and every last teardrop into the resistance. A revolution like no other, they claimed, that was the brainchild of their brilliance. As they grew closer, their separate clumsy heartbeats merged into one single thunderous rhythm. Surely nothing could come between a love that was united in humanitarian efforts.
By the time graduation robes neared, and colours reappeared across campus, the string that bound these altruists had started to come undone. Consumed by consumerism, a worldly woman in designer threads stood in place of our former rebellious lioness. As she appeared to be a phoney, her subjects rightly labeled her a fraud. Soon, her expensive appearance was a liability to their cause.
One black Friday between thunderstorms was when this War of the Rhodes' came to a halt; she turned away in anger only to be struck by his left lightning bolt. Electrified, and hurt as we reach the final breaths of real love, as it often ends. Only fairy tales wrap in happiness, why else would they appeal to us heartbroken humans.
What about healing, like we planted trees? What of the hospitals, where we pulled smiles out of the broken and the weak? What about the prisons, the detention centres unjustly holding refugees? Where did we stray, where did the love go? When did our own silence need to be bought with violence? What about orphans, widows left to starve in the streets? Where did we go wrong, to get here today? What about love, sweet love that doesn't end up settling in court? When can we return to peace and harmony? Unless we turn back, we won't have a pretty planet to watch on TV. If Satan's greatest con was convincing us he doesn't exist, isn't it time for us to accept we got ourselves into this mess?
