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“The distance never made a difference to me. I never minded when I came visiting you,” I whisper, attempting to soothe Egeria’s senses after the crazed sounds of claws and filth. I rest my hand on the lace pillow of Egeria’s cheek, letting my fingers nuzzle her cheeks that I have concluded are made solely of carbohydrates. Her eyes open for a second, and I can hardly bare it as her lips twitch unsurely, attempting to form a smile, to assure. May they never open so unhappy again and I pull from the earth’s power a poppy, grabbing her seeds away from her anthers, and I lay them on your tongue I extract from your mouth, to soothe and to pull you into sleep so I may think, may buy us time. I am too used to playing your with tongue in other manners, leading my lips across it as I tease you– to not do these things is what I can only describe as dysphoric. My hands do not belong this way, examining you like coroner would.
Lotus roots, bioluminescence, a plant’s cuticle, these exist, so I may hold you tight to my chest, feel your love run through every vein in my body. My blood, you are there, on the right side of my heart, and then you travel to the left, gliding from the soft cartilage of my nose to every climax of my body. You run laps around me, and I feel dizzy, already aching to see you again, right there under my left breast.
All other plants, all other beings, get to behold the privilege of your presence, and I am green with envy. I think I am the most jealous of the lotus, she traps your essence though her long sallow legs, clutching and ensnaring your shape. She may hold you there, no silly air creating gaps between your flesh. Ten different holes, all for you. I selfishly wish to turn into one, just so I may take you in my body, soaked. When it rains, I resent burflower trees, a drop of water on each and every soft needle, their yellow orbs sequestering your moisture only when the laws of gravity scream at them for your release. Yet I am eternally grateful, because without them I would never be able to pleasure myself with the sight of all your little drops falling to the ground in my rainforest, all related shades of banana yellow, lizard greens and the pale blue beads that stream from you, my sourcewater.
When you breathe the air that releases itself from your lungs with every exhale brings the cold, fresh, with a tinge of soil, as if jasmine had entrenched itself in your alveoli since conception.
(Humans have such purgatory opinions of soil, I adore humus the same way I adore children. Soil is full of energy, it is full of life, protein in its most natural state. It is the breastmilk I am grown from, what else can one do but cherish it?)
I feel as if I can make everything about you, how silly is it for the goddess of wisdom kicking her feet and giggling, thinking over basic facts of our world’s biological makeup, because it reminds me of times we shared a meal in one of your underwater rooms, or the way you took me in a boat through flooded fields, and my children would weave you a crown of grass, studded with brightly covered fungi. For example, Egeria, did you know there are over 2,749 different ocean animals that are bioluminescent? Almost all of them only live in your deepest depths, where sunlight does not reach them. Some use it to hunt, trapping morsels of meat in their jaws lured by the pretty colors. Others use it to defend, flashing the ones who want to devour them, blind. A small amount of them use it to mate, and it makes me wonder if they are just too shy to make the first move? It reminds me of us, because the image pops into my head of the first time we meet Egeria, your checks such an uncharacteristic color for you, like a cute little cuttlefish unable to let your emotions not affect your skin. It worked quite well on me.
A natural being, yours is one that befuddles me because I know you are not, but your scent, your name, your form, brings back the songs and choruses of a time we have now lost, a time my tree flourished and roots had not been separated, unsullied by naught but soil. I believe you know of this time, why your gentle eyes filled with tears. The start of an unforgivable sin, and a change of chapters in the history of your body, though tragedy may be a better word, but a tragedy is defined by a grey foggy sadness that coats the characters from head to toe— but I digress, I refuse the possibility that might be your fate, because I remember the day I read your story, digging through the roots of our world, and I found you so fast. I read of creation, incubation, and ‘birth’, your ‘mother’ laying you down on the soft slopes of Mount Esus in fields of deathly pale lilacs, leaving with you naught. I read of the first time you unwillingly birthed, staining your eyes, your so sinful love the crown detests. I read of your time underwater, all alone, and the way your mind deteriorated as you touched the iron bars that caged you in. I read of your joyous return, your time as a ruler and how your children lived in harmony under you. Yet all the same, seeing you as a glorified uterus, and how you yearned for new connection. And then when it finally came, in the form of that beautiful knight on her white horse, everything crumbled into dust on first contact, shooing into our land.
I touched your body, to discern the pictures I’d heard described and colors and pictures swirled onto the pages, illustrating to me everything that list of ones and zeros had said. The section of your eye, that pale spot which every tear, every child had struggled and peeled out from, understanding why your sight was always damaged. The pale tinge of your skin, lackluster from all the time spent locked up, deep underwater. You never understood how I could wear jewelry, no matter how beautiful the silver crescent tika was. Too much metal, yet another piece of skin trapped under rock.
(I remember Nabu once bought you a ring, covered in garnets, so carmine one would think they were steeped in saffron. Colors matching the ever-red inclusions on your skin and eyes, and the way your skin froze, turning into the cold meat of the clams you spend so much time amongst.)
(When She passed, and everything in the desert died again, the state of our own little world was comparable to only the destruction of the pale iron crown brought. Yet one of the first things you did was try to discard the ring, as if you couldn’t before, and every time it would always appear on your hand the next day to haunt you, as if Nabu couldn’t bear to release your body from her nailed hold. Moisture trailing down to the crown of your cheekbones after, as if someone had thrown a star at you instead of given you a ring.)
(I realize now, she probably did that on purpose, she always relished leaving pardisarah colored bruises on the inside of your thighs, so if anyone other than herself tried to open your legs. I always saw them when I peeled your legs apart from each other, opening in hopes to get a taste of your mango flavored core, if you would so let me. The image of you always slightly whimpering when you said yes, your eyebrows upturned and forehead scrunched up in effort is as clear as ever. You always said yes.)
I know the vermillion and aubergine bruise that almost fades into celadon at the edges better than I know the sound of my own name, yet every time I hear that unique rhythm of syllables sail from your lips, I want to recognize it just the same, so it may become part of my body. A piece I can keep forevermore. I am like a greedy desert hog, draining you from the surrounding soil so I may touch.
(I remember so much, each change in your current enclosed in my body, a new ring to be put on display for when I feel the eventual blade of an axe in my trunk.)
Each memory runs through my limbs; my data collection is almost complete, every silk finger on mine becoming a D-Cell, as I hold down the correct key. Current grows stronger, thousands of electrons slamming through my veins, and I harness it all for you, I may only hope that I can help. A new form for you, a beautiful lake flower, one where you may rest upon the surface. A new sweet dream, separate from all the nightmares trapped in the old books. Here you may thrive, my dear Egeria, a pale blue lotus, free from any form of metal.
(How ironic of me to be jealous of them seconds ago)
I wrap you in myself, a big large tree, one steady, one that may protect you from terrified dreams. A place where I may kiss you softly from, I think to myself, as I resist the urge to sing to you.