My arms. My cat. I am a tree.

When the bird hissed I knew my time had come. When she curled her knuckles and the swan rose from her fists I knew. I knew the coil, the mortal swimmer, the wings that spun like diamonds inside the snake made of a man. Only you knew the sound of her cry, cold blue hands wrapped in blankets of ice, your eyes only knew where water melts like tears. I could have made you love me then, I probably did. I could have rose from the dead to see you one more time, I probably did. I was once alive. I could have been human, they said that I was, the other blue people, the people who don’t use words to speak. But I wasn’t a human and they were wrong, I have never been human. I have been something for a very long time, a long lonely list of nothing, a bucket for water taken to an empty well. I have been a part of these things they say only matter when you notice the hiss of long ago, the promise that counts every second as God loops and exhales. And so when I died nobody cared, not like they cared for the sight of her reptile body. Nobody ever cares about the parts inside that don’t seduce the animal’s hungry eyes, the parts of my silent secret hidden, and yet I don’t ever hide. Well, I am hidden, it’s the path of hiding. You don’t know what I mean, only quietly do your hands reach the sky. The sky is no longer real for either of us, the sky is hanging on the edge of her smoky eyes, the rage of heavenly fire, the knife through my empty heart. Open for you, like pain in a dress that dances and sings and points the other way…my eyes are filled with a million oceans of forgetting, the way it must be in a place like this, and still I never do. Forget the wanderer. It’s you, I don’t forget the pain made of ocean blue. It’s you, pulling the water of their sorrow. The pain made of ocean blue, the tears of us that sunk to the bottom of an aching world, the eyes inside of me that see, you my wounded bird. The mortal swimmer, the tears of man. I must be exactly as the gods have planned, I must strike every soft cord just to hear you see me. Lightening means thunder. Storm. I am drowning because I want to. And I will, know you beneath me as death under water, and I will do all the rest inside the smoke that rises. All the suns that left as dying balls of fire, all the returning empty mornings…I will fall from like bodies that could never match. I knew you would leave once the shadow disappeared, my matchless other, and my eyes were only the eyes of a human then and still you saw the water from before. I knew it was only a matter of drawing a deeper hole, a darker picture of the night room. Hiss inside me, hiss into me, beat me with white fists, take me inside your only wings. It’s only me, the light forever. Smiling black temptation, hold my hand death maker. I know, it’s all about the sun that never rises. As long as the night is mine. I’m yours, you can take her back scar eyes. Red heaven where the night sits, there isn’t anything.

There is the cat watching from the arms of trees. My arms. My cat. I am a tree.

And if I make no sense and if you are a snake upon the earth and if you don’t hear her calling while you slither looking for holes and food…and if my heart is not your home and if the pain is just too much…pain breaking everything solid. I would say go into the trees and cover her roots with your skin. Put your face in her dirt and water God’s feet. I told you real flowers are invisible, the rest are decoration and distraction. I told you a little bird sits on every unseen petal and a little snake is wrapped around every slender stem. That is the story of how to make love. God is not sexuality, don’t be sleazy. God is real. Love is real. Don’t hide behind your product grinning for a buyer, don’t be a whore and a liar. Love is deeper and the word is unknown. Know your lover inside. Stop hiding from the rapist. Pull the black blanket over your head. What I say is kill yourself by loving me. I’ve done this. I know you. Sexuality is a prism and God has eyes everywhere hiding. You see what you want to see. You touch what you are. Go to the top and pull all her flowers and kill all her stars and melt all her snow. Go to the top alone with only me.  It’s quiet inside deep flames made of glass. God isn’t real, God is how God is. I am you and I am clawing at the window like a cat with a bird in her mouth. I bring everything to your feet. God, cover me in silence and the death of every flower. Only then will I find your eyes in my bleeding, aching, starving, leaking, broken ocean heart. I am a whale, as blue as ancient glass. As quiet as a teardrop. As resonant as the thunder of fucking that feeds wild snakes. I can’t go wrong. Don’t try to stop me. It’s me. The end and the first kiss of life that is love. Innocent blue lake love. Glass lake. My eyes were blue just like yours. My name was written on secret fish, my sound was inside and I heard the first words that God spoke,

“Hurt me, feel the hurting water, stop moving, grow fruit that hurts, make colors, taste the wind. I am watching. I am God fucking you all.”

Sharada Devi