Break me, Hyena
1/1
It never ends, this place. It is infinity, yet it is finite; it is freedom from reality, it is confinement within your mind— raw, hopeless, whip-cracking thralldom.
These labyrinthine corridors are forever. The eerily plain walls are chipping and peeling, frantically scratched away by bloody fingers. Creepers, dark and thorny, knot and tie and tangle so thoroughly, slither across rubble-ridden floors, weave up the walls, and pierce through the ceiling, as if they too are looking for Paradise.
It is a maze— your maze— you move, you rearrange, and I am lost. So dreadfully, dreadfully lost in both body and mind and spirit. I am your mere amusement, a tortured little marionette.
I run, I run so hard I feel like my heart and lungs and head will all simultaneously burst, splattering the already crying walls with red. My panic is growing in a thick black smog, billowing and building, threatening to suffocate me with grubby little smoke-hands. Eyes flooded black and veins pumping with white hot adrenaline, skin dirty; stringy hair falling into my eyes, blinding me, weighing me down. I am running, stumbling, falling; frantic. My feet and legs and arms and face are thoroughly mauled with cuts from the thorns, and my blood drains still, but I ignore it.
What I'm running from— or towards— I don't know. Perhaps that is what keeps me going. There is nothing there. I know, I know there isn't. But I feel their presence. I feel their breath on my neck, their claws in my back … They are with me, forever trailing me, through this endless illusion. So I run, I run so hard.
It's not like I have a choice, though. You won't let me stop. Should I try to pause to catch my breath or gather what little wit I still have, the floor, once so cold against my bleeding feet, turn hot like a bed of coal. So I move on— arms pumping, chest heaving, legs aching— knowing that this godforsaken labyrinth has no exit; no end; no salvation. I run because I have no choice. Because you make me.
I hear you split your sides to the tune of a deranged giggle— that of a hyena, watching and waiting and then moving in to scavenge. It echoes throughout the halls, haunting. Through monitors, feeding through cameras that aren't even there, watch as it plays out in a twisted horror flick, black and white and crackly like old silent films.
I beg, plead, pray, sing, scream, hope, dance. I am desperate.
God, God, help me please. Kill me now, strike me down with lightning, sweep me far with towers of waves, burn me alive— I don't want to die this slow, tortuous way. Make it quick, make it easy on the soul and conscious.
Burn, tear, strain, buckle. Stop it; why won't you stop. I feel the shadows closing in, grabbing at me like a little animal with black, dusky appendages. I pray to every god, I plead to any ear, I cry Nile upon Nile. They break through the floor and tear through stagnant air. Heart stops, throat closes, lungs burn, eyes pop, lips open in a scream that tears but makes no sound. Blank, black faces bare white teeth at me, staring through white eyes crying pale, wriggling little maggots. Their gaze is unhinging and utterly terrifying, but I feel a cold comfort by staring into them. They giggle and suddenly tear through my already battered flesh like starving beasts. Feasting upon my pain, my hopelessness, my anxieties, my loneliness, my twisted little thoughts. The sound that escapes my throat is one capable of making the toughest man cringe. You chuckle, and it slowly escalates into a insane, delighted laughs like a screeching violin.
It hurts— please, oh god, it hurts.
Tears fall and little black arms pull me down, down, down into pools of shadows dotted with alabaster worms. It all drains from the winding creeks of salt water, and suddenly, I feel fearless. Bitter, alive, high on my own madness. My own cracked, sardonic laughter intertwines with your own hyena one. They melt and merge and ring as one, so beautifully that I wonder if it was me all along who was cawing like crows.
This is delightful, this is beautiful. It is skyward freedom, it is chained earth, it is Truth, it is a twisted, raw fucking of the body, mind, and spirit. If this is what being broken is like … break me now, break me tomorrow night, and the next, all over again, every night, again and again. Let our laughs echo through your tempting labyrinth, our Paradise, our sanctuary.
These labyrinthine corridors are forever. The eerily plain walls are chipping and peeling, frantically scratched away by bloody fingers. Creepers, dark and thorny, knot and tie and tangle so thoroughly, slither across rubble-ridden floors, weave up the walls, and pierce through the ceiling, as if they too are looking for Paradise.
It is a maze— your maze— you move, you rearrange, and I am lost. So dreadfully, dreadfully lost in both body and mind and spirit. I am your mere amusement, a tortured little marionette.
I run, I run so hard I feel like my heart and lungs and head will all simultaneously burst, splattering the already crying walls with red. My panic is growing in a thick black smog, billowing and building, threatening to suffocate me with grubby little smoke-hands. Eyes flooded black and veins pumping with white hot adrenaline, skin dirty; stringy hair falling into my eyes, blinding me, weighing me down. I am running, stumbling, falling; frantic. My feet and legs and arms and face are thoroughly mauled with cuts from the thorns, and my blood drains still, but I ignore it.
What I'm running from— or towards— I don't know. Perhaps that is what keeps me going. There is nothing there. I know, I know there isn't. But I feel their presence. I feel their breath on my neck, their claws in my back … They are with me, forever trailing me, through this endless illusion. So I run, I run so hard.
It's not like I have a choice, though. You won't let me stop. Should I try to pause to catch my breath or gather what little wit I still have, the floor, once so cold against my bleeding feet, turn hot like a bed of coal. So I move on— arms pumping, chest heaving, legs aching— knowing that this godforsaken labyrinth has no exit; no end; no salvation. I run because I have no choice. Because you make me.
I hear you split your sides to the tune of a deranged giggle— that of a hyena, watching and waiting and then moving in to scavenge. It echoes throughout the halls, haunting. Through monitors, feeding through cameras that aren't even there, watch as it plays out in a twisted horror flick, black and white and crackly like old silent films.
I beg, plead, pray, sing, scream, hope, dance. I am desperate.
God, God, help me please. Kill me now, strike me down with lightning, sweep me far with towers of waves, burn me alive— I don't want to die this slow, tortuous way. Make it quick, make it easy on the soul and conscious.
Burn, tear, strain, buckle. Stop it; why won't you stop. I feel the shadows closing in, grabbing at me like a little animal with black, dusky appendages. I pray to every god, I plead to any ear, I cry Nile upon Nile. They break through the floor and tear through stagnant air. Heart stops, throat closes, lungs burn, eyes pop, lips open in a scream that tears but makes no sound. Blank, black faces bare white teeth at me, staring through white eyes crying pale, wriggling little maggots. Their gaze is unhinging and utterly terrifying, but I feel a cold comfort by staring into them. They giggle and suddenly tear through my already battered flesh like starving beasts. Feasting upon my pain, my hopelessness, my anxieties, my loneliness, my twisted little thoughts. The sound that escapes my throat is one capable of making the toughest man cringe. You chuckle, and it slowly escalates into a insane, delighted laughs like a screeching violin.
It hurts— please, oh god, it hurts.
Tears fall and little black arms pull me down, down, down into pools of shadows dotted with alabaster worms. It all drains from the winding creeks of salt water, and suddenly, I feel fearless. Bitter, alive, high on my own madness. My own cracked, sardonic laughter intertwines with your own hyena one. They melt and merge and ring as one, so beautifully that I wonder if it was me all along who was cawing like crows.
This is delightful, this is beautiful. It is skyward freedom, it is chained earth, it is Truth, it is a twisted, raw fucking of the body, mind, and spirit. If this is what being broken is like … break me now, break me tomorrow night, and the next, all over again, every night, again and again. Let our laughs echo through your tempting labyrinth, our Paradise, our sanctuary.
♠ ♠ ♠
rewritten