Wurzeln (Roots) by Æverett

Leaf by Hiroyuki Igarashi via Unsplash

Leaf by Hiroyuki Igarashi via Unsplash

You stand in front of the mirror, muscles tired, and watch your own skin.

You flex and stretch and watch your body move, like some force of biological magic.

Then, you see it — tendrils. Creeping roots. Pale blue and branching. Your veins under your untanned skin. This is what they mean by “translucent.”

You cup your breast up, away from your ribs and twist slightly, stretching your side-body to observe the thicker vein descending from your hip into your pelvis. To memorise it’s limbs, branching, reaching up toward your ribs. To see the tendrils weaving over your ribs, latticing about the Cage. Lacing across your chest, under your collar bone, from your shoulders, like wadded spiders’ webs.

You imagine my fingertips running over them. Tender touch. Gentle breath. Whispered kiss.

You feel no shame in your pale state. You are beautiful in your biology. Your blood flooding to tired muscles.

Should you break the skin it would flood out.

I want to remember it.

 

About the Author: Æverett Æverett

Æverett lives in the northern hemisphere and enjoys Rammstein and Star Trek. He writes both poetry and fiction and dabbles in gardening and soap making. She has two wonderfully old cats, and a dearly beloved dog. He also plays in linguistics, studying German, Norwegian, Russian, Arabic, a bit of Elvish, and developing Cardassian. Language is fascinating, enlightening, and inspirational. She’s happily married to her work with which she shares delusions of demon hunters, detectives, starships, androids, and a home on the outskirts of a small northern town. He’s enjoyed writing since childhood and the process can be downright therapeutic when it’s not making him pull his hair out. It’s really about the work and words and seeing without preconceptions.

Image Copyright: issaystudio / 123RF Stock Photo

just start something, by Æverett

Vintage Nature

Vintage Nature

 

just start something and let it go. let it grow and become, like a disturbed child. spill onto the page every word or phrase or image that occurs – and don’t allow anything to be censored or hidden. allow it to be raw and so full of emotion that it threatens to rend you limb from limb and leave you strewn asunder over valleys and mountains. allow the tears to smear the ink on the page. let yourself bleed out onto the paper. because when this thing has grown into a roaring beast – a horrid dragon of toothy maw and flame – all sex and pain and the deepest love imaginable, then have you created something perfect, so flawed and beautiful beyond imagining.

 

About the Author: Æverett Æverett

Æverett lives in the northern hemisphere and enjoys Rammstein and Star Trek. He writes both poetry and fiction and dabbles in gardening and soap making. She has two wonderfully old cats, and a dearly beloved dog. He also plays in linguistics, studying German, Norwegian, Russian, Arabic, a bit of Elvish, and developing Cardassian. Language is fascinating, enlightening, and inspirational. She’s happily married to her work with which she shares delusions of demon hunters, detectives, starships, androids, and a home on the outskirts of a small northern town. He’s enjoyed writing since childhood and the process can be downright therapeutic when it’s not making him pull his hair out. It’s really about the work and words and seeing without preconceptions.

Image Copyright: issaystudio / 123RF Stock Photo

and he sleeps by Æverett

Everest(1)
and he sleeps
with the View in his Eyes
sinks into an Abyss
the safe Darkness
a numbing Cold
they kiss him goodbye
the Night is soft
a tender kiss
he dreams of that Sight
his waking Eyes remember
his Breath comes easy
but soon not at all

(2)
he sinks in the Water
cold River
the Stones kiss his nude Feet
the Current caressing his Rest
and between the Stars
the Moon is weeping
her dying Son swept away
his Skin as pale as hers
Tears hide in Water on his Face
take him to the Fall
a Roar – he cries out not
in weightless Envy his Wings don’t work
a Stone falls though Water
drenched upon the whirling Surface
the Eyes no longer open

(3)
moored upon a rocky Shoal
River-stones sing to his naked Back
his Head laid in the Grass
a Lark is singing
his Brother dead
and the Clear-river kissing
the Body run aground
eased upon the warm Bank
and he sleeps
the Reality is a lovely Nymph

Image Copyright: arsgera / 123RF Stock Photo

About the Author: Æverett

ÆverettÆverett lives in the northern hemisphere and enjoys Rammstein and Star Trek. He writes both poetry and fiction and dabbles in gardening and soap making. She has two wonderfully old cats, and a dearly beloved dog. He also plays in linguistics, studying German, Norwegian, Russian, Arabic, a bit of Elvish, and developing Cardassian. Language is fascinating, enlightening, and inspirational. She’s happily married to her work with which she shares delusions of demon hunters, detectives, starships, androids, and a home on the outskirts of a small northern town. He’s enjoyed writing since childhood and the process can be downright therapeutic when it’s not making him pull his hair out. It’s really about the work and words and seeing without preconceptions.

I have written so often, by Æverett

rumbledbedsheets

I have written so often about your voice, but the feeling

remains, ever present, like a ringing in my bones. The taste of

your words as they leave your lips, like honey on my

fingertips… I wish to hear your whispering words, close

enough to feel your Tongue. The music from your mouth

amoung the sighings there in silken sheets. The sighing of my

dying Lungs, you steal my breath, with only a sound, a

whisper, a word. Your verses only make it worse.

 

About the Author: Æverett

ÆverettÆverett lives in the northern hemisphere and enjoys Rammstein and Star Trek. He writes both poetry and fiction and dabbles in gardening and soap making. She has two wonderfully old cats, and a dearly beloved dog. He also plays in linguistics, studying German, Norwegian, Russian, Arabic, a bit of Elvish, and developing Cardassian. Language is fascinating, enlightening, and inspirational. She’s happily married to her work with which she shares delusions of demon hunters, detectives, starships, androids, and a home on the outskirts of a small northern town. He’s enjoyed writing since childhood and the process can be downright therapeutic when it’s not making him pull his hair out. It’s really about the work and words and seeing without preconceptions.

Plotting and Planning by Æverett

old farmhouse window

Great, empty house with old, wood floors, and open rooms. Unclaustrophobic. The realtor would not shut up about the damn kitchen – how it’d been upgraded not so long ago, or how beautifully painted the cabinets were. She’d grimaced and immediately decided to strip them to the wood. The powder blue had to go. It was too… bright. Brushed steel would be less garish.

If the realtor’d been male, she’d have offed the awful woman already. She’d insold farmhouse windowulted the old windows. Truth was, the old farmhouse windows were a draw. She’d keep them, but refurbish and weather seal them herself. Couldn’t have the neighbors hearing screams.

But it was the yard that sold her. A wide swath of lawn and room for a shed. Room for a Garden. A place to plant her flowers.

She’d been searching for that for ages.

That’s *exactly* what she’d been searching for.

“I know, the rest is a bit rough, but…”

“Sixty-thousand, right?”

The realtor’s face went blank with shock – then lit with glee. “Yes. I’m afraid the bank won’t go any lower than that.”

“I’ll write you a check whenever we get the paperwork handled.”

“Oh! Wonderful! Let me just make some calls!”

She gestured the other woman out the door as she pulled out her phone and started dialing. *Yes, dear god, woman! *Get Out!** She closed the door and was alone.

Yes… Living room, spacious and dark, neat bathroom, modern kitchen, two bedrooms upstairs… and down, space for the Guest Room. Planning would be key. Soundproofing and insulating. Resealing the floors. Carefully furnishing. And the Garden.

She smiled at the thought: A sprawling herb garden… chamomile and bee balm blooming… feverfew in one corner… monkshood in another. Foxglove and anise. She would enjoy plotting the layout, constructing the beds, cultivating the plants. She looked forward to those long afternoons in the dirt.

But first, those fucking blue cabinets had to go.

And first the Guest Room had to be ready.

* * *

The neighbors were impressed with the new resident’s work. She’d cleaned the exterior, sorted and trimmed the yard. And she was making steady progress at refurbishing the old windows – one at a time, by hand, and by herself.

Mr. Tammond said she was an example of female ingenuity and resourcefulness. He said she’d be a good role model for young girls.

Alone, she laughed about that – as she considered welding the bed frame together. She didn’t *like* any man, but she thought it was okay for him to keep breathing.

The neighbors were impressed with her work. With the clean front walk and fresh windows. With the newly green trim and sealed wood door.

To them, she was just a quiet do-it-yourselfer, who worked odd hours and loved to garden. They were shocked when the FBI started digging up bodies.

Aren’t they always?

In hindsight, they realized why she never had any of them over for dinner.

Image Copyright: pavelk / 123RF Stock Photo

About the Author: Æverett

ÆverettÆverett lives in the northern hemisphere and enjoys Rammstein and Star Trek. He writes both poetry and fiction and dabbles in gardening and soap making. She has two wonderfully old cats, and a dearly beloved dog. He also plays in linguistics, studying German, Norwegian, Russian, Arabic, a bit of Elvish, and developing Cardassian. Language is fascinating, enlightening, and inspirational. She’s happily married to her work with which she shares delusions of demon hunters, detectives, starships, androids, and a home on the outskirts of a small northern town. He’s enjoyed writing since childhood and the process can be downright therapeutic when it’s not making him pull his hair out. It’s really about the work and words and seeing without preconceptions.