makyo

Author, Beat Sabreuse, Skunks

Recovering techie with an MFA, working on like a kajillion writing projects at once. Check out the Post-Self cycle, Restless Town, A Wildness of the Heart, ally, and a whole lot of others.


Trans/nb, queer, polyam, median, constantly overwhelmed.


Current hyperfixation: SS14


Skunks&:

⏳ Slow Hours | 🪔 Beholden
🫴 Hold My Name | ✨ Motes
🌾 Rye | ★ What Right Have I
🌱 Dry Grass | ⚖️ True Name
🌺 May Then My Name

Icon by Mot, header by @cupsofjade


makyo
@makyo

speak to me
speak to me
speak to me
speak to me
speak to me
speak to me
speak to me

that i may see
that i may see
that i may see
that i may see
that i may see

the face of god
the face of god
the face of god


makyo
@makyo
I was born at the edge of the numinous.

That is why I can tread along the border.
That is why I'm able to whisper the name of God.
That is why I'm allowed to know the number and how to factor it.
That is why I have seven fingers spread wide and three curled toward my heart.
That is why my limbs trace the curves and lines of power when I dance.
That is why I sit with my back to the sun in summer.
That is why my body is a canvas.

You were born in sunlight.

Speak secrets into my hair.
Take my words from me.
Spend the intercalary days telling me lies.
Break my movements with a breath.
Wash my face with salt water.
Tell me the name you call yourself.
Close my eyes.

We will sleep in the shade.

Let me bless you with smoke.
Let me bathe your feet.
Let me light the candles.
Let me place a stone beneath my tongue.
Let me taste copper.
Let me draw in ash.
Let me rise up until my head is in the branches and my hair becomes the leaves.


makyo
@makyo
At the beginning of time,
when chaos birthed to order and disorder, we were blessed with two souls.

One has seven eyes and can see all of the monsters in the dark,
but is blinded by the sun.

The other has no eyes,
but can feel no pain.

When order and disorder were close as children,
our souls experienced the world hand in hand,
but as they drifted apart and began to fight,
some of us left one of our souls behind,
and that is why we search.

makyo
@makyo
Babel was a collaborative effort.

Once,
we all spoke the same language,
but on seeing god grow increasingly anxious with the rate of our progress,
we agreed to let our tongues be confused,
so that he could take things at a more comfortable pace,
and we could be assured he would not understand us unless we prayed in silence,

for only then do we speak the language of angels.

makyo
@makyo
When I speak, the words drip from my tongue as ink,
and form writing on the ground,
and I leave a trail behind me,
and the ink stains your feet,
and when you walk, words and phrases and sentences are pressed into the soil,
and the ink breathes life into the plants,
and even the grass will flower,
and the bees will flourish,
and they will both sting you and provide you with sweet honey.

The ink stains my chin and my clothes.
Sometimes, I speak into my hands and stain my cheeks as well.
I speak against my fingers and press them into my flesh until I am covered in rosettes.
I stretch my hands to the sky and marvel at how black they are.
And as with the grass, where the ink stains, growth quickens, and I am covered in soft fur.
I fall to all fours and hunt amid the rocks and the buildings, between cars and along trails.
And when I am full, I curl up to sleep, and awake human once again.
My skin is clean and my mind is clear,

and I cannot speak.

makyo
@makyo

(Last one is long)


There was a sort of succulent quality to the air, as though, were I to bite down on it, it would all come bursting forth at once. Dribble down my chin. Stain my shirt. It would be sweet, almost saccharine. It would beg for a pinch of salt to quell all that sweetness.

I didn’t know whether or not I’d be able to stomach it, honestly. I was dizzy. I was apart from myself. Above, and beside. I was looking down at myself. Were I to do so, to bite into time itself, I would surely overflow.

Was overflowing, I realized. Was bending forward at the waist where I was sitting. Those black choir chairs were comfortable, but made you sit up straight, so I couldn’t slouch. I was bending forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and then bowing my head, bowing further.

I was overflowing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. We weren’t singing, the basses, we were watching the altos rehears a part, so it wasn’t too far out of the ordinary for me to be hunched over, breathing shallow, watching myself from above.

I was overflowing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Hunched over, breathing shallow, and watching from a few feet up, a few feet to the right, so that I could see my shirt tear even as I felt it against my back. I was so thin, then. So thin.

I was overflowing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I watched my shirt tear, and my skin follow. I watched it split along my spine and peel back. It was bloodless, but not painless. The feeling of those wings, newborn and weak, slipping from the wound was raw.

I was overflowing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I watched the wings stretch and extend from the wound on my back. “Aha,” I thought. “This is it. This is finally it. It’s finally happening. I am becoming something greater, and here I am, so unprepared!”

I was overflowing, though, not transforming, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The growth did not stop at wings. An eye. A beak. The graceful curve of a head. Plumage.

“No, this isn’t it.” I panicked, and could think of nothing else but to apologize. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The bird cocked its head as it climbed free of my back and perched on my shoulder. It cared not for apologies. Why would it?

Another pair of wings followed.

Another.

Another.

My hands were buried in my hair, I could see - barely - through the forest of pencil-thin legs crowding my shoulders, my neck, my head. Their weight had forced my shoulders down until my head was nearly between my knees.

We were singing now, and I was silent. How could I sing, when all I could do was beg silently for forgiveness? How could I sing with the weight of a dozen crows slowly crushing me into my seat? How could I sing when I was overflowing? There was nothing I could do to stop it

Chaos. The director stopped the choir, and as one, the flock lifted off. The weight was lifted off my back. The cacophony filled the air. I was borne up through the air by the birds. The birds were splitting, multiplying, avian mitosis. I was borne up, up. Up.

I was told afterward that my body stumbled, unthinking along the row and toward the double doors, that the director had sneered, “It sure would be nice if we had all our singers here today.” I was told that folks defended me, saying I was sick, I was pale, I was feverish.

I don’t know, I wasn’t there. I was above the Flatirons. I was beyond terror. I was beyond joy. I was beyond sensation, beyond any emotion except for that bottomless, black guilt. Sticky. Tar-like. Bitter. The flock numbered in the thousands, and still we flew up.

The blue of the sky became white, blinded, became black, and I was sitting in the hallway. I was with my body again. I was sobbing. A teacher stared. Students gave me a wide berth.

I cleaned myself up. I went back to choir. What else could I do?

A bird had plucked something from me. Something precious. Something unknowable. Something important and integral. Something hard. Something emerald and glassy. Before the white of the sky overtook me, I saw it in its beak.

The caw it gave as my vision left me and my ears filled with static was…triumphant? No, not quite. Triumph implies that the birds could do anything but succeed. In that sound was inevitability.

After school, *** and I tramped through the ‘mini-forest’ and, impelled by something of the avian within, I collected five sticks.

They had to be as straight as possible.
They had to be balanced as close to the middle as possible.
They had to be the same length without me breaking them.
They had to have been from different trees.
They had to have fallen more than a year prior.

When I got home, I lay them in a row, asked my question, and, one by one, broke them in half.

What had I lost?

Why does memory stain you with that black, tarry guilt?

I had forgotten about the birds until recently, but every time I feel that ecstasy — that ekstasis — I am pitch. I am tar. I am sticky with apology. I am the living embodiment of “I’m sorry”.


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