You think you are the king of the bog? Of the underhill? Of the black wind howling between the stars? She is Saint Anna. Anna with the mouth of god, Anna with the fist of bone. I am the girl half burning. I am the bull in the maze. I am Mabel Martin, and I am coming for you. I am coming for you. We are coming for you.
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You think my worship makes you holy? You think that my blood can cleanse your sins, you think the religion I have based around you is pure?
I worship you, Anna, and with each breath I cry out to you, for salvation, for forgiveness, for eternal life, but this does not make you holy. The worship of a mad girl does not mean you are a kind god.
I love you, Anna.
I love you, and it hurts like glass is digging into my skin.
I am a sinner, and you are a Saint, and a sinner should not fall in love with a god.
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You told me once, of a story where a witch fell in love with a girl and ate her, and every day after, flowers fell out of her open mouth. You told me once, of the vines that wrap and constrict around your ribcage. And I told you once, of a story where we met in a flowershop and never did we have to die.
I held a mirror up to my face today. There is a daisy coming out of my eye where the pupil should be, and it doesn’t hurt like it should.
I think the rot could take over my corpse, or the flowers will, but whatever is made of me, I am still a corpse trapped in reality.
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You aren’t special, Anna. You are a saint, and they are a dime a dozen. You are perfect and arrogant, and perfectly arrogant, and I think that I am the rot on your corpse.
I feel the vines crawl beneath my skin as I burn them off, leaving scarred flesh and charred stems and soot behind me as I go.
You say you are a daisy, and if you are the daisy, perfectly innocent, and the picture of grace, then I am a sprig of oleander, bursting flames ready to consume any being who dares get close.
Saint Anna, perfect Anna, you think you can save me? You think you can control my rot and my flames and tame me into a mild daisy or a violet? You think you own the garden? Do you think the world will open for you?
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There is a story about a witch that ate the girl she loved. There is a story about a girl who ate the flowers and died.
If you are the oleander, then you have consumed me already, because I am living with the bones to prove it.
Living. Perhaps the wrong word. I am staring at the wall with my empty eye sockets, grinning because I have no choice but to.
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A saint without agency. A sinner rarely gets their truth, but a saint without choice is a very funny thing to behold indeed.
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I am planting flowers over my own grave, Mabel. I want to be with you, I want to be near you, I want to plant these flowers with you, Mabel. I want to become you.
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I will burn the plants you hold to a crisp by touching them.
Dangerous things and beautiful things don’t mix.
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What are you, then?