fall

My eyes crack open to the sound of daggers at 8:27 am and I say to myself, "I have to stop this."
But I can't.
Minutes later I find myself naked, silent and still. Pressurized water from a silver nozzle lashes the crown of my skull.
And this king is deficient.
And the water is hot.
Beads like plastic attach to my feverous flesh and roll off and away, following the invisible paths of least resistance and I wonder, Why must she resist me? Why must I repel myself?
Beads like plastic attach and roll off and away. Down a drain. Away.
Steam like smoke billows and rolls, blossoms and undulates, rendering mirrors and vision fogged and useless, choking. Yet her vivid reflection penetrates, and she is a parade of beauty and I am the naked king, shrinking. A frozen spectator lost without his crown. Silent and still. Absent of his jewels and void of his rule. Impotent.
Only she can disarm me yet I wield the silver blade and I'm slicing myself to slivers. The blood. The water. Mixing and down a drain, off and away, coating the walls and floors of places I'll never see.
Transmitting and traveling.
The blood.
The water.
The people.
The products.
The tears.
The data.
Surrounding and scouring.
Searing and singeing, the water burns my flesh and I reach for the knob, turn, and make the water hotter.
Burn me, baby.
Make me forget you.
"I have to stop this."
But I can't.
Still and soaking naked I am a broken king. My court is disheveled and the palace is crumbling. The water is running and the hallways are flooding, beautiful. I'm exposed to no one but myself yet I've so much to conceal.
I will deny the scars their location. (Dispatch the forces.)
I will purge this acrid belly of its desire. (Burn her portraits.)
I will refuse her apparition a chamber to haunt. (Exorcise the demons.)
But these feeble commandments die on my tongue and I realize the true futility of a king's rule. Land can be seized and men enslaved, yet her heart is an untamed spark slicing skies like falling stars and voiding the valor of noble souls.

And then -- silence.

The sound of the lashing nozzle.
The sound of water lapping skin.
The sound of a heart, flooded.
The sound of everything drops to zero.
Off and away.
And somewhere inside, a jewel shimmers, catches a fractured ray and ruptures, its blinding brilliance clotting my eyes.
And my hands: Clean, dry.
And in the left: A sliver, a dagger, a broken point from my useless crown.
To her ghost and to myself, I speak, "Please, Love, take this jagged slice of crooked royalty and cut yourself. Dance with its edge and bloody yourself. Destroy your face until you become an abominable creature of horrific brutality, ugly. Please, turn yourself into something that I must abscond and abandon, look opposite and turn away.
"And if this plea for mutilation is refused, please take this tip and tear my chest, remove the cancerous heart and dispose of my waxen shell; for the man who is tempted by an elusive ghost is doomed to the cruel servitude of his own heart.
"Slay me, Love. Water your tender garden with the fountain of my flesh.
"Splay me.
"Dissect me.
"And search for the culprit of such venomous love. Destroy it so that it may never duplicate, reproduce, captivate and plunder another unsuspecting soul."
She refuses to strike, so the king extends his hand heavenward, braces for the brutal piercing and...

Water. Everywhere.
The back of my head is throbbing and my finger returns bloody.
I've fallen and the water is running.
And blood is mixing.
Down.
Off.
Away.
"I wish I could stop this."
But I can't.

mc