a lie (imagery)

 (A lie manifests as a curse, a bitter taste in your mouth as you swallow - trying not to gag at the bitter flavour. It goes down like cough syrup and you hope it soothes your bloody throat.)

The morning rises with a rose-tinted sun. To drag yourself out of a half-drowned bed is difficult; even worse to see a reflection of yourself in the mirror. Does the makeup cover up the cracks in your skin? Do the spiders crawl out of your eyes when you blink? Do you hear the earth calling your name as a mother calls to a child, do you remind yourself not to answer because in acknowledging her you acknowledge yourself as one of her own - privy to the same love and the same rage?

The lie is blatant in your face. This cannot do. You paint it away with cheap paint, the water acting as a sort of fleeting baptism. Maybe a few pills, a prescription to soothe your unreality. 

The sun is bright and blazing - a divinity that sees past the dynasties and the ruins; and in all the heavens and earth, the sole honoured one. The smile it gives you is slightly unsettling and you think of all those who have been in love with him, but the sun is an infinity you cannot touch. Do you hope the burn will finally, finally free your wings?

But the lie is an insistent demon. You think you can smoke it out but you only corrode your lungs. And now you cannot breathe. The lie settles in more comfortably because you are turning yourself inside out, your ribs waiting to crack out as bloody wings you hoped the sun would bestow. You are a walking calamity, a semblance of an existence and you hope they do not see it in your face. 

The sky is a mirror, and you see a tinge of the sea in it. You blink at the dissonance because maybe this is a mirage - the sea cannot be so bright and beautiful, so untouchable when you are drowning, dying, deteriorating. You breathe in the plastic air, rattling around your throat like a bottle of pebbles. The ocean is far, the beach is of a sordid dream. The train speeds behind you and you're left with a choice - to live an illusion of gold sand and cerulean infinities, or to move forward in your plastic life. 

The lie admonishes you. How many curses can your body contain? It is only a matter of time before you give in, the lie to become a vengeance you inflict onto all that you hold dear. You cannot imagine an existence beyond this train, and you're reaching your station soon. 

Will you step out into your blood, and will you raise your crown? Will you claim your lie or will you suffocate in your anguish? 

The lie will soon consume you whole, to the point where you do not know where it starts and where you end. It will be your gospel and your curse - your cultish faith because you have lost all that you have once known and all you can now hold dear is this twisted fate. Will you raise it like a child, bestowing it the love you have now lost? 

The sun will set soon. Another day passed and what do you show for it? Do you present your lies and curses to the heavens, hoping that with it as an excuse you can live another day? Do you even call this living? 

The sun will set soon and with it your resolution grows. The moonlight festers in you everything you try not to glance at but it justifies it with such diligent logic. This can be the only decision. You gaze down at water again because water cleanses and you see the fish dying. Plastic water, plastic lives, plastic lies, it's always been plastic - 

It is now the night. 

(The lie manifested as a curse. You did this to yourself. In the mirror, you and your lies are interchangeable; you are a demon of your own creation. The end heralds soon, and now you must repent. In divine battle you will meet your death at the hands of your other half, and he will tell you with sadness that he has always loved you. The sun has always loved you.)