17, Still Can't Swim

moon tears, healed cuts

it was the dusk clouds and beryl sea that cleansed the gods' fingers to create a gentle mist breeze. one of them played sounding waves like a riveting sedation, the sleepy birds chirping goodbye.

the moon is a subtle pulsing of silver light in the quiet of somber nights. but sometimes, she just likes watching over her children as they taste the whimsy of her gaze.

isabeau, (electric heart, mystic eyes), devoured the moon like its flesh swells the earth like a mother's prayer. her tongue recognized the ancient, yet her hunger remained insatiable. and a girl sitting on the moist sand could watch it all happening at once.

delilah's mouth curved at the sight of isabeau caressing the sea beneath her feet. she picked up destitute seashells to add to her collection of lost things. in the shadows, she kept smiling. for she knew she was one of them, too; something of a lethal rumble gone astray, finding its way back home to her.

there was everything about how isabeau offered her hands to that of a devilish serpentine, eager to stroke her fingers on its head. the poison never scared her, for she liked the rawness of its throat lying heavy across her lap. and for that the carnal showed weakness and it trembled upon her holiness.

because delilah was no princess but when she needed saving, the gods gave her the sky. she had isabeau healed the stitches on her heart, the scars on her wrists, the bruises on her neck. delilah could no longer feel the blade hidden in her hand but the soft angelic touch of isabeau's palm. she was magic, she was divine.

delilah knew that the world loved isabeau, but not in the way she does; she would never lay a finger to hurt her innocence, to sever her soul until it crumbles to dust. because in just two passing months, there were darker phases of the moon and it began to mirror the ugly shift of the tide.

in a blindspot, the serpent was one step ahead of isabeau. it sneaked into her, pouncing. its fangs dug deep on her flesh, the poison sinking into her veins. it bit off the quiver and every morsel of her body like a haunting menace.

for isabeau had her pale glowing skin bruised by the filthy touches of three men under the eyes of the sun. she felt the earth brushed up against the nudeness of her skin. their invasive hands desecrated her sacred temple, the divinity of her feminism. palm to palm, skin against skin, their fingers traveled all around her body; tangled up in her hair, stroking her shoulder blades down to her soft navel. they feast on her like it was their final supper. they sucked her flesh, bit her bloodthirsty raw, eating her to her brutal misery. her violent screams reverberated along with her crying prayers and hitching breaths. but there is no hint of mercy in their eyes. there is fire but it is lust, and they maimed her.

too much that she could no longer speak. there is soreness in her throat, her tongue numb in its severed tip. the words hang above her with unfamiliar syllables, her mouth taped up by their unrelenting threats.

isabeau had no choice but to hide herself; in cornered rooms, in the alleys of the streets, in the bathroom floor of her bedroom. the cold tawny tiles sticking to her feet, traveling to her clothes. she pounded the back of her head on the ceramic wall and she hopes that there's no bloodstain. she stifled, her nose stuffed and her cheeks crimson red. her breath ragged by how she stops herself from crying for the noise to not go through the thin walls.

in the evenings, it haunted her; remnants of their whispers turned to moans, their heat upon her skin. they were shivering, quivering, trembling, on their knees as they came between her legs while she laid there full of dirt but soulless and empty. she could still feel an aching burn from their touch, for they marked her like they owned every right to stroke their fingers religiously on her bare skin.