Goddess

I see a Goddess, and she is I, as I am she. Her body, death in the pale of the moon, is scared, and marred with flecks of amber. Her hair is wild, not curls but not waves, never straight, always an unruly combination of both. The color is special, a blend of copper and gold, of the heavy amber of a good whiskey. Her eyes are frighteningly beautiful to behold, like a snake charms its prey with its gaze, sensuously dangerous. Her eyes are ever changing, always hiding, never clear on anything, not even love.

This Goddess does not know the meaning of the word as her pale body is showcased to the pale moon, her only witness as tears stream unchecked down her cheeks which are freezing to the touch. Her eyes remain open, their blue of the deep, glassy lake, their gray of the stormy clouds, just before a good rain sets in for days, their green an angry emerald that has been overshadowed by the others. Her breath barely stirs, her heart pounding in unison all over her body, nothing more powerful and more sorrowful as that in her chest, where her excuse of a heart does lay.

Her face is calm, her lips trembling slightly as the moon attempts to caress the pale pink, which once born the sweetest of sayings and the most hatefulness of retorts, back to life, but the moon's efforts are all in vain. Nothing stains these lips now but the salt from her tears.
She utters not a sound, not a whisper, her hands to her side, her legs together, her back tall and regal even as you see what is left of the world leak out of her eyes in a deathly pace. Her cheeks turn blue and her heart stutters, that heart of a warrior who has fought many battles bravely, who has taken so much of other's pain but have received little of their appreciation, who let itself be taken away and torn at little by little, until all that is left is the tears. The tears, the disappointments, the pain beyond any recognition.

Her lips loose color and also start to tinge that blue that is the immortal kiss of death, the last kindness the world granted to her. Her heart stutters again, reliving all those times of loneliness, all those betrayals, all those screams of terror and forgetfulness. Reliving those bruises and cuts, almost feeling them blossom on her skin as her heart labors on. Reliving those words of hate said to her, written to her, relayed to her, all of those words of false alliance and hope. This Goddess has heard it all and yet hears nothing now, as if her ears have stopped relaying it to her brain to translate.

Her body starts to weaken as her hand clutches convulsively around the dagger, the dagger of a Goddess. Warm liquid flows freely and heavily down her arm to the blade, where it drips upon the land, lost in such destruction, starts to live again. Blood makes the crops grow, she thought wantonly, as her heart stuttered more forcefully, her breath coming out laboriously. The blood on her other arm makes rivers down her wrist, to lace around her fingers gently before it makes one last bold move and strikes the ground.

Her eyes do not close as her body is lost over to the numbness and it is all that she can do to stay standing before she passes out, all that she had to keep from blinking or brushing the tears away. Her body is limpid, and yet she falls gracefully to her knees, as gracefully as she can fall when her weakness betrays her.

One pulse of life, then silence, as her mind begins to cloud, another pulse of life, then longer silence, and her resolve weakens, and she lays down, still staring at the black and charred ground, unblinking, her thoughts racing and falling, never to get back up. Her hair is spread out in a waterfall of tangled silk, her body bathed in the moonlight, the witness to her destruction and downfall. Her eyes remain open as the last of her breath eases out of her tired lungs and her heart ceases it's trying task of keeping the blood pumping. There isn't enough blood left to pump, it says to the dead of the night, for all of it is spilt upon the ground. She is the object of her own destruction.

Then, I am standing above her, above me, for she and I are one, and I am staring at my own destruction. My own desolate choice, and I weep for us as our body seems to turn to marble, scarred by battles long forgotten, stained by the blood of our enemies and of our own righteous wrong doing. Where our tears lay pooled becomes a lake, to encase our entombed image, where all may see if the look hard enough, but will never be able to touch. A statue of a powerful woman, fallen. A Goddess, turned to stone as all mourn her passing, the dagger still clutched in her hand for all time. Our hand.

We will be born again new, though, for we are the phoenix, the one thing that lasts forever. Forgotten, but not lost. Even now, a babe cries out and her eyes are like ours, her hair like ours, her strength and her vulnerability like ours, but so much different. She will be the new Goddess, she will be us, and we shall be her and the circle of life and death is started anew.

~2005