***

Dark spirits in the mist …

The cauldron boiling away the flesh to the bone, the sickening scents made her nauseous as she curled in against herself, the over-sized blue sweater slung over her small body. The dawn was still a few hours away as she ran her fingers stretched out through her short dark hair- Staring through the floor into some far-away place where a silver sort of sun was held into a still frame.

The canvas was rest of her life …

The blank whiteness that she could touch with so many different hues, and yet her mind refused to leave the past behind. Gathering three upon the fingertips of one hand, she pressed her nails against the screen- Like cold flesh to the touch, and that touch left fingerprints in red and black and purple.

This was her escape …

To never even feel the weight of the brush in her hand, fluid pooling into rich and thick textured forms- the release splashed in an ecstatic fury and fervor. She never really seen what she was really making until she would fall back, exhausted …

And then will it all away.

It didn’t matter if she could sell it, or if she would have to give it away- all that mattered was that it was gone … far, far away ...

What beautiful and angry gods adorn those charnel houses.

“Bruja!”

The voice like a dying screaming into her head as she whispered the incantations under her breath … To expel these things from inside of her and trap them within the heavy layers of paint within the canvas.

“Abominosa!”

She whispered the word as the faint light of the sun broke in between the dark curtains of her room, this place raised high and above another wholly sort of different and saner seeming world than she had ever really known. One that she had never been allowed to believe in- though she could feel it, rather like Mama could once sense the presence of angels

… and they would call them to her bed every night, until her bedroom was filled.

“See them my Preciousa?” She would always ask and the young girl in the bed would always shake her head. The soft featured and beautiful woman would always bend in close and kiss her forehead. “Someday perhaps,” she would say as she stroked her hair away from her face and rose to leave.

But she never did.

“Good Heavens!” Sister Margaurite cried as she came into the world of an older and motherless girl. She was lying there in her nightgown, covered in paint. The Sister had crossed herself as she stared at the wall before looking back to her with a wide-eyed expression.

“This is what I see.” She tried to explain as Sister Margaurite scoured at her with a coarse brush.

“It hurts,” she cried and tried to move away but was stopped as the older woman grabbed her by her long hair and held her back.

“We have to get you clean,” she said angrily. But she knew that it was really punishment.

“Abominosa ...”

The word lingered in the air like a dark wraith, or in at least in the passing of it.

“Forgive me.” She spoke to the small plastic Madonna that sat upon the high shelf, her eyes closing slowly as the paint dried upon her hands.

She had never learned to see angels until after they had fallen ...

And she could see them coming for her now.

 

 

©2005 Porphyry