Love is a dangerous angel

I am a shell.
Not a pure, light-filled seemingly fragile thing, opalescent, shining; this shell is something covered in slimy black seaweed, buried at the bottom of the blackest depths of the poisoned ocean, forgotten by time.
An ocean poisoned, as I am poisoned. But the ocean cannot blame itself for that poisoning. The ocean did not put those toxic chemicals into itself, as I have.
I am a shell.
And I am broken. Shattered.
Nothing could put me back together now…

I awaken slowly from a dream of black water, dragging myself from the shores of dirty sand. I sit up slowly and blink my eyes a few times, and the room clears from foggy blur to something resembling reality.
To be honest, I’m no longer sure if I am awake or dreaming anymore. I lie in my bed most days, falling in and out of consciousness, barely moving. Every few days I get out of bed and drag myself to the shower, mechanically soaping my body, washing my hair which has become so long it brushes the tops of my thighs. Tangles no comb seems able to unravel.
Twisted, like the labyrinths inside my head.
I no longer know what reality looks like anymore. Besides, I prefer the fevered opium dreams:

Your hands, long and graceful, hands that touched me as lovingly as you held your guitar…you were always able to coax music out of both of us.
Your clear fire and ice eyes, electric blue, looking into mine without fear, knowing me as no one else had ever known me.
Your voice when you sang; screams, wails, whispers. Your voice when you spoke; softer, scratch-and-crackle, a voice of smoke and glowing embers, murmuring into the shell of my ear. Your voice that could reduce me to nothing but a heart, beating in your hands.
I dream of you...

I wander the rooms of my house in a silk robe, cold bare feet whispering over floorboards. I move from couch to chair to bed. I am silent, I don’t speak or cry; the tears have long dried. This shell is empty of ocean.
My daughters are gone. My soul, my other half, is gone.
I am alone.

I am a shell.

So two people have responded to my previous post to rekindle this group. That'd be three people total. A good start, I think. I'd really only be willing to get seriously involved again if we could get at least 8 people willing to make a commitment to at least biweekly postings for at least 6 months, so at least 12 posts.

If anyone is reading this and wants to advertise in other comms, please feel free to drum up interest, whether or not you are interested yourself. I'm also going to try to pimp it a bit, see what comes of it.

For the record, I would most likely be rekindling my role as nick_agate and possibly as angel_juan (actually, provided I can figure out how to access either of them. I'm not sure I remember the passwords, frankly, so I might have to create new accounts if I can't work that out.) I would also be open, however, to the possibility of playing in the Ecstasia/Primavera universe, if there was more interest for that.

Let me know folks! :)

I'm just feeling compelled to post here and say that I miss this and everyone who was involved.

I wonder if anyone else does? Maybe we'd be able to get it together again.... I'd be interested.

*hugs* to all who might be reading, regardless, you are a fun group and I had a lot of fun with you all.

Dear Witch Baby,

Stella gave me the address of the last place you'd written from; I hope this letter reaches you somehow and finds you well.

I've read and reread your coffee-stained postcard, trying to figure out how to respond honestly and without sounding too clutchy and mom-ish. But I guess what it comes down to is this: I can't say I fully approve of what you're doing, but I probably would have done the same thing if I was your age. As you know, even now I'm not above taking the occasional escape to get my life back together. 

Though you'd quickly try to deny it, you and I are very much alike: both now poised on the edge of another precipice in our lives, trying to find our respective places in this beautiful, scary, complex world. At this point, all we can do is trust that the roads we choose will lead us to something meaningful and that whatever magic we trusted up to this point will continue to protect us.

I know from experience that the process of finding yourself is a long, involved, and sometimes frustrating one. But I have faith that your strength and determination will ultimately lead you to your desire, in whatever form it may take. Until then, please know that you always have a home here if you choose to return.

Love,
Weetzie

OOC: I know this is kind of a half-assed and sudden response, but I'm leaving for vacation tomorrow and didn't want to leave anyone waiting. Be back in a week!

Dear Weetzie,
Remember the skeleton bracelet you gave me before I left for New York to find Angel Juan? It snagged on the edge of a trashcan at the Amtrak station while I was throwing away a nasty hotdog. All the plastic skeletons went flying on to the tracks. I almost jumped after them when a tiny old woman with cotton candy hair grabbed my hand and showed me the train was coming closer. It was like little, old, Weetzie jumped back in time to keep me from losing my head...literally.

I'm sorry I never told you about dropping out of school. I was just a number there, identified by 9 digits, barcoded. Everyone is in this big giant hurry towards nothing. I just couldn't be there anymore. I didn't know where to go but I knew I had to leave.
I've been wandering from state to state, through hundreds of cities and I'm still just another grain of sand slipping through the big giant hand that keeps scooping us up just to watch us fall in silky strands from thick fingers. I can't come home yet. I know home, but that can't be the only place where I belong.
I used to only want Angel Juan, my drums, my camera and Fig Newtons. I should want more. I do want more, I think. I won't be where I am for long so I can't give you an address. I'll write again. Sorry for the coffee stain. The waitress overfilled my cup.


Witch Baby

It happened as if it was a dream; maybe that's all it ever was. Maybe that is all my life has ever been. One long, nightmarish dream that sometimes seemed beautiful. Maybe I will never know, now...
I don't know where I found it; where I found the number, buried amongst bloodstained love letters and dried orchids, a phone number scrawled in a spidery hand long, long ago, on a matchbook from a bar that is no longer standing:
Shadow - 381-0666
Shadow. Goddess, I knew someone named Shadow, once? I barely remember meeting him. I close my eyes a moment and see a whip-thin boyish demon in blood-red leather pants, cruel mouth, laughing with Nick, with Flint Cassidy, one of those long-ago parties. Drug-drenched and often barely standing, eyes green as poison, as real as Celeste's were not.
And they glowed in the dark. Especially when he made me cry.
I remember now.

My hand is shaking as I dial the number. I get another number from the gruff voice who answers, and I write it down, next to the old one. I light a cigarette with one of the matches in the book. Inhale.
...taking your poisons, transforming them, saving you but losing my own fight in the madness
I dial this last number. After that, things move too quickly for me to stop them.
A dream...

He laughs when he hears my voice, and I am sickened as I ask for what he has. He agrees to come that night, and I pace the house, smoking, hardly noticing the tears coursing down my face.
The knock.
At first I think it is my heart, and I jump, and then my heart does start to pound when I realize who must be at the door.
What I am about to do.
I need to know what holds you in thrall, my darling, Nick, what drug courses through your veins so that you are afraid to live, afraid to feel anything but that? Maybe if I understand, I can heal us both. Maybe I can transform the poisons...
And maybe, maybe they will just kill me as they are slowly killing you.
I feel like a fraud. My magic is all gone.
I feel like a fool.

After, my body lies in bed, there but not-there, detached, watching Shadow swagger into my bathroom, naked, without looking back. The water starts to run.
My body feels bruised, broken, a wilted, filthy rose lost in a gutter. The needle lies next to me, on the nightstand, like a dull viper, metallic and deadly.
For this you sell your soul? You use what beauty you have left...for this?
Poison. Poison apples, thorns on roses, finger prick. Opium dreams. Poppies dusting powder.
Poppies broken and bleeding.
It hurts to breathe.
No one will be here to kiss you awake

The water turns off, and he walks into the room, pulls on those red leather pants, stands above me, shirtless. He says nothing, and I stare back at him. Pinned like a butterfly.
I see the lust mingled in with the swaggering pride, the disgust, in me? In himself?
Though I forever wonder what beauty I could possibly have left, to make men look twice at me anymore...how I can still use it at all.
Shadow tosses another little packet down, next to the syringe. I flinch.
"You more than paid for it, babe" he says, a sneer in his smile. I turn away, close my eyes, lie there until I hear his boots pounding
the way he pounded into me
pounding down the stairs, the door slam, the roar of the bike as it speeds away. It must be getting close to midnight, now.
Like a dream...
What we sacrifice. Is it worth all this?

Nick, I don't know where you are, I don't know how to find you, I don't know if you even want me anymore. But I need to know. What is stronger than love? Drugs? Magic? Hate?
I am so tired of trying to go down a road with no one beside me. I can't make everything all right with teas, with potions, with paint.
Not even with love.
So maybe your medicines are what I need. Maybe if I travel down myself I can come up with the answer.

I get up slowly from the tangled bed that smells of smoke, of blood. Demons. I take down the lace from the mirror, and catch a glimpse of my face reflected back in the light of the candle there, and I pause. My eyes burn, my hair is wild, my skin so pale...a bruise on my left shoulder, purple as my eyes.
I am almost beautiful. I almost see what they see...
I tear a strip of lace with my teeth, sit naked and shivering on the edge of the bed.
So strange how it all comes back to me now. Like it hasn't been years since the last time...
Tie it tight around my upper arm, making the skin even whiter. My shaking hand holds up the syringe. I wouldn't let Shadow do this to me, see me this way. I did not use this to dull the pain of what I did with him. I saved this for when I was alone.
Who am I fooling? I was always alone
I gasp as I feel the needle bite into the soft flesh at my inner elbow. Blood swirling, mixing with this poison heaven, hell, nothing. I don't know if it's too much, but it's too late to worry about that now. I stretch across the bed, half-wrapped in the sheet.

Warmth, radiating from my core, but I'm shivering with it, curling into myself. My breath feels light, so light, my body insubstantial. Maybe I have grown wings...maybe my roots have planted themselves further into the earth, iris, orchid, rose...no longer myself...flowers. The root of love...

When I close my eyes I'm not sure when or if I will be opening them again, but I promise myself I will remember these last thoughts, even if I am taking them with me to another place.
I feel as if I am spinning, spiraling, down, down...
My eyes snap open and I hear a little cry. Was that me?
All of a sudden, I am terrified. What have I done? But the world begins to grey out and I shiver, wrapped in the sheets. Too late. Frantically hoping...for what? I can't name it.
But I do anyhow.

Nick...wherever you are...oh, goddess, I am so sorry...

i continue:

"i'm not back in LA yet; i had to escape, like you did. i'm coming back soon though, and i need to see you. i want to see you. i don't know what you think of me, but im sure it's not good. we need to talk. the best way to reach me is by calling xxx-xxxx."

i stare at the phone after setting it down, feeling like this is all a dream. it must be.

i wonder if she'll call.

The housekeeper recognized me and didn't throw me out. I wish I had something better to say for how things are going, but that's been the last of my good luck.

I know that the car is out of gas, and I'm not sure I could drive it if it weren't. I don't see myself leaving this couch for a few days, and if I can't find the housekeeper again to bring me some water, maybe something to eat, I won't make it that long.

Sleep has been a good friend, but the dreams make even sleeping a fearful activity. Witches and vampires invade my unconscious and my waking hours. Demons and phantom needles hover above my sweat soaked skin.

Vixanne. A whispered prayer, almost unspoken. I don't know if I can stay with her, if I can even make it to see her, but I need to know that she is safe. Want to find her happy and beautiful. Selfish as always, I want to know that she is better without me, I want her to validate my decision not to wait for her. To prove that I made the right choice.

I need to know that I can go back to my slowly looping downward spiral without anyone but myself being damaged. But I don't. What I need is to be with her, to heal with her, but I have no reason to believe that I can, and I prefer my destruction to be self only.

Will I even see her, will I even leave this tomb of memories. Time, I suppose, will be the deciding factor.

I don't know why I didn't get into my big overblown metal-monster of a car and drive straight into the desert when I hopped off the plane at LAX. Instead I am trying one of my dear Claire's time-tested relaxants; a hot bath.

Water has never restored me the way it does her. Even though I like my skin to stay pale, the searing heat and blowing dust of the desert is what revives me. The sun shining, the world's biggest spotlight, hanging in a sky so cerulean blue it hurts to look directly at it. Nothing but dust, and desert hares, prickly bushy things that seem so hard and guarded on the outside, but with a puff of wind, they blow away.
(Here's where the audience is supposed to realize that she, the girl, is just like those plants, guarded and tough, hiding a vulnerable child inside...but then, I've never been one for cliches)

So, where was I: in a bath, reading and rereading the headlines in the rag my agent left on the coffee table, some shameless thing that's halfway between People Magazine and The Weekly World News...but closer to the latter. And if the magazines are writing the television is talking too, I suppose. I try not to think of what the bitches at E! Entertainment Television! (*retch*) are saying about my abrupt departure from the city. Biting the hand that feeds her, that's me.
So, I suppose all of Los Angeles knows I'm back by now. Back from Italy where I studied silent film, talking to some of the most important foreign filmmakers of our time, trying to shoot the sorts of images that stay on the insides of your eyelids, long after the credits have rolled. I feel like I've been there for years, and feel almost surprised that my apartment is still here, just like I left it, down to the dirty coffee mug in the sink.

Jesus, I still can't help but think of myself living in one big movie, and does that mean that all my lines are written out for me? That these scenes are all rehearsed?

Hmm...I wonder when the calls will start coming?
The phone rings, and I chuckle to myself as I wrap a soft black towel around my hair and let the water out of the bath. How can I stop thinking of life-as-a-movie, when these things keep happening?
But then, the voice on the other line stops me cold.

'Violet? It's me, Flint.'

Flint? Flint fucking Cassidy?? I don't move, hardly daring to breathe, listening to that voice, crackled through the line, electricity traced with nicotine, dry as the desert I was just dreaming of.
But what the hell could Flint have to say to me, after all this time? After the madness...after...everything? My heart starts to pound in my chest, even as I try to maintain my cool-director veneer.
He's still speaking as I slowly pick up the receiver.

is eating my creative soul.

I plan to update as soon as I manage to get my current story submitted to my editor this week, I promise!