birth of a siren

I stand overlooking the ocean. A craggy cliffside stands behind me. Emotion has all but emptied from me, porcelain limbs hung at my side as my eyes peer into placid waters, clear and devastating. The surroundings are of my own creation. Grayed and dull. A mirror of reality, to watch my body from a safe distance, to protect a part of myself I cannot yet give up to him. But even that may be slipping. It’s hard to tell. There used to be so much more color. 

In reality, the noon-time sand burns the soles of my feet. My sandals dangle lazily from the tips of my fingers. I question whether I will let them slip from my hands. Will I allow them to become lost to the Aegean Sea? Will he?

My lover talks enough to fill up the silence that surrounds my body like a halo. 

I can’t make out what he says to me, but I catch the annoyance twitching at the corner of his mouth. His lips are stained from all the wine. I know he drinks to feel something, something I can’t provide. 

“Why are you so quiet?” I watch his purple lips move with the words. They crack like a whip. “Don’t you have anything to offer?” Haven’t I offered enough? It is our constant battle: while my mind folds itself around fantasy, he is consistent in his efforts to cement my feet to reality’s underwater grave.

Even if I speak, I know with certainty he will not hear me. Not really. He would not hear even if I let my screams rip through the skies. It should make me angry, but I can’t feel a thing. 

I smile to please him, and, for that moment, it is enough for his judgment to dissipate and his words to carry on in their useless suffocation. I block them out, thicken the barrier between us. I examine the slight slump to his shoulders, the way the sun makes new colors dance about his irises. He has always been the kind of man whose calm permeates the air around us like an embrace. But it is a warmth that, if untended, can scorch and burn so completely you’d wonder whatever could be left. 

He has all but cut out my tongue. 

And yet, fool I am, I stay with him. And, for what? To hold up the standards of someone else's needs? To pick at fracturing memories, wondering why the pieces will no longer fit? Had they ever? 

I watch as he tugs at my elbow, guiding me away from the ocean. Away from my body, I dread his intent. It’s palpable, even with the wall erected between us. The jerk of his grip slides the sandals from my fingertips. I watch silently as the tide reaches out to take them away. I don’t even protest, but the sadness I feel for them is almost pathetic. 

He leads me to the mouth of the cliffs, an erosion of smooth gray stone and darkened sand. 

“Can we go back to the water?” I squeak out, eyes pleading. My body shrinks back; he looks so much taller in this lighting. The shadows fall over his face at cruel angles. 

“Don’t be so uptight,” he mutters, eyes drunk, surveying every inch of exposed skin. His body blocks my own. I watch myself step back into the rock, tripping on rubble and sand. I wish I could melt into the rock and disappear. 

“You’re drunk,” I manage to whisper. He fumbles at the laces of my shirt. I can barely watch, feeling my emptiness solidify. 

He’s frustrated, as he always is. I can see the anger pulse through the veins in his neck. I sense it the way he presses into my skin. I can’t remember the last time I felt pleasure, satisfaction. 

The darkness fuels his lust with a fury and I grow still, allowing his lips to explore the veins of my wrist, each kiss like thorns raking up my skin. My soul remains still, my heart even. A normal woman would shiver at the warmth of his breath on their skin, the give and take. He has only ever taken, but that’s not entirely his fault. I simply don’t know what part of me is my own. Though, I’ve always suspected it is because I am broken, missing something at my core. 

His words tangle around me like weeds choking out a garden. I can’t escape them, so I let him take.

I turn from the grayed, glossy waters of my mind’s palace and let my body fade in the ripples. It is the only way I can survive this moment with him.

“Has the little bluebird lost her voice?” A woman’s words ring in my ears. Her voice is not of my design, and I’m weary something here has broken. Slowly, cautiously, I turn around to face my visitor. 

A youthful woman stands before me, coppery locks crowned in narcissus. Her eyes are curious, soft. She edges toward me, graceful and weightless. The earth below her turns from gray to golden. 

“I have listened to the song in your heart for so long,” she says, humming something familiar and sad. Now standing in front of me, her fingers take my curled fists, open my palm, and trace the lines like cracks in porcelain. “You and I are much the same.” 

“Trapped,” I breathe, almost scoff, the word pricking at my brain. I nearly move to cover my mouth, as if to take it back; it is a horrid thought. 

“Yes,” she whispers back, bowed lips curling into a knowing smile. “But I can help you change that, as I have done for countless others like you.” 

“I can help myself. I always have,” I say. My throat itches with the lie. 

“My darling, I’m not questioning your capabilities,” she laughs, her voice like a small bell. “I’m here because I see your strength. I’m merely offering you the chance at something greater.” 

I scan her eyes, wondering what I should distrust. “Something greater?”

“Yes, a chance to be free. A chance to devour the world.” 

I hesitate, waiting for a catch. Her eyes convey nothing. I can’t understand why she’s here, nor who she is. 

“I don’t know…” I can’t look at her. 

“Let me ask you this: who are you?” She brings her fingers to my chin, tilts it upwards. I stammer my name, but she only grows displeased. “I know your name, little bluebird. I’m asking what makes you who you are. What do you love? What makes you happy?” 

I shake my head, panic rising in my gut. My mind claws at cobwebs. “Does it matter?” The question shatters me.

Her fingers wipe at my cheeks. “Of course it matters.” Her voice is as broken as I feel. “And that is why I am here.” 

“I can’t leave him—” I utter without thinking. I am shaking, uncertain why my mind even betrayed such a thought. 

“And why not?” she scolds softly. There is no stopping the river of tears. They stain the collar of my shirt. 

“I’m nothing without him.” 

“You’re nothing right now.” She sighs, brushing away the hair clinging to my wet cheeks. “Why have you allowed yourself to break so visibly, so quietly?” 

“I’m scared of what’s inside me,” I whisper, tightening my arms around myself. “I don’t know what to do with her, but I can’t let her escape.” 

“I disagree.” 

“You say you’ve heard my song. You know what’s inside me. You know what’s wrong.”

“All the more reason to let her free.” 

“No,” I tell her. 

“Why?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you. I did not ask for your questions.” 

“Then, my dear, you deserve what has become of you.” 

“What do you know of what I deserve?” I ask, quiet anger lodging in my throat. 

“You deserve the world,” she spoke to me, her voice louder, crashing against my ears. Color bursts out around us, then fades back into gray. 

“How can you be so sure?” I spit at her. “If I’m nothing with him, what’s to say I’m nothing without?” 

“You decide that, little bluebird. You can choose whether you’re something more, or something used.” She’s clasping the sides of my face. Even her words are boxing me in. My palace moans and snaps around me. It threatens to collapse. 

“I can’t!” I yell, scared by the sound of my own voice, shrill and violent. 

“Do you even love him?” I don’t like the tone of her voice. It mocks me. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I slap her hands away. 

“It’s a simple question. Answer it.” 

“Of course I love him.” 

“As an expectation or a choice?” 

“Shut up,” I croak, walking away from her now. If I can shut him out, surely I can shut her out too. 

“Yes, run away from the thoughts that scare you. Isn’t that so easy?” 

“Shut up!” I bite back. My voice roars in my ears. The scent of roses grows stronger still.

“I’ve seen your heart, little bluebird! I know you long for something else. I see it in you even now.” Her voice encircles me, chews at my insides. I know, from some visceral piece of me that she is right. But I shove it down. 

Block it, bury it, strangle it. 

“Go away, get out of my head!” I yell; the sands and crags are endless. 

“Accept that mind of yours, and maybe I will.” 

I am running now, the scent of roses plugging my nostrils. My heart wants to collapse. 

There’s a brief moment of silence, until she appears before me like a crack of thunder. I nearly crash into her. I stare into an unsettling blackness that creeps into her eyes. Her hands grip my wrists. Discomfort sets in as pink nails dig into my flesh. Her laugh is intoxicating, wild. Her teeth snap into a smile. “I will offer you a proposition, and only one: let her loose, even for the briefest of moments. Do this, and I will make you free.” 

I shake my head. I try to pull away but half-moons dig deeper into me. My eyes close shut, willing her away from me, willing myself away from everything. 

“Don’t be a fool, little bluebird,” she hisses. “Say yes, and let your song be heard. What are you so afraid of?”

“I don’t want to be a monster.” 

“My dear, you already are.” 

Lips can be kissed, but mouths devour. 

As if by an unknown will, my fingers grasp at his shirt, gathering the fabric in an unwavering fist. His heart thrums with life, begging to burst out from behind bone and muscle. Each kiss calls to it with a fervency I could not place. My teeth break the soft skin of his bottom lip. 

In the darkness, I am reminded of my rage. I can see what is missing, wanting to claim it; wanting it back. I reel at the strength of my rage, like electricity under my skin. I decide to let it take over me, just as the woman had asked. 

Pain radiates in my back. Bones shift and crack, skin pulling taut. Something within me is pushing outward. The pain is wretched, but I welcome it, want it. It feels like change. 

The flesh of my back tears open, bone and muscle asunder; a feathered mass bursts from my soul like a divine retribution. My back arches and wings expand outward, black and bloodied. The weight of them eases me. Their power, my power, thrills me. 

The beast unfurls from my lungs in a scream that silences the sea. My hand plunges into my lover’s chest and I watch the fear in his eyes with a deep, excruciating satisfaction. I claim his heart and allow his broken body to drop to the floor. 

My body shakes, a choked laugh bubbling up my throat as I examine the red lump cradled in my hands. Is this all a heart is? 

Nausea overtakes me. I drop to my knees as the heart skitters away from me in the sand. I vomit bile and arils until my stomach feels hollow and my wings wrap around me in a protective shell, until a cool hand rests upon my shoulder like a pillow of snow. 

I recognize her scent. Roses and rain. 

Persephone. I exhale, my voice a scrape of broken strings. 

“Little bluebird,” she acknowledges, surveying my wreckage, brushing my hair back with an almost motherly affection. She kneels before me now, tilting my chin up so that our eyes meet. 

I swallow. Regret, to my surprise, does not rule me. Though I do not know the woman that stole this man’s heart, I am not afraid of her. Nor am I ashamed of her wrath. 

“Do you accept my proposition?” she ask me. Her eyes shine with pride, hunger. 

“Yes,” I respond, not recognizing the sound. 

She kisses my forehead, my cheeks, my lips; my fate is sealed. 

“Who are you?” Persephone asks me. She takes me by the hand, helps me stand. Together, we walk out and into the sun. The salt air soothes my scars. 

“A monster,” I tell her. And I feel alive.