So I ask you this.

Sometimes there are people in your life who decide, without a whim or a care, to march right in and take a giant chunk of your heart in your hand. And they never fully realize how much they affect you. Those are the people I am concerned with now - the ones whose hearts make your own breath catch in your chest at the oddest of moments.

Sometimes there are those who you freely give your heart to, in bits and pieces until finally they have a large collection. And those, perhaps, are the worst. Particularly if they also fall in the first category.

And there are those who are responsible for shattering your heart into pieces to begin with.


So think about it. If you read this, which one are you? And which one will you be?

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A Kindergarten Love Story

Sitting upon the window seat, coddled and warm as he watched the world go by. Little Antone had no idea of the life that lay beneath him as he stared out, viewing the snow which collected into great drifts against the outside wall. Away from the window seat, away from his warm and comforting home, lived a life, a life not all that different from his own. A world he only knew of from dreams, it was a world he would discover, not on his own, but with help from a most unlikely source.
Antone had lived, by all means, a very normal life, in a very normal family. There was one sister, a father, a mother, and various cousins to occupy his family tree. A small house in the suburbs of London, he lived a life that, while not elegant, was not entirely uncomfortable either. A small yard bordered their house, and a garden in which his mother tended to religiously. It was this garden which Antone, a gifted artist, would sit and stare at all day, garnering inspiration for his next piece.
From the time he’d been a little lad, Antone had been a strange one. Never seeing the big picture, but always focusing on small details. This made him the brunt of the neighborhood boy’s jokes, and they would harass him endlessly. It was only earlier in the year, when he was staring out the window at his mother’s prized Geraniums he’d found a kindred spirit.
He’d first yelled at her, thinking she was there to do some damage. “You there!” he yelled, running out from his half open window, brandishing his weapon of choice, a tennis racket. Although he was never much one for sports, young Antone kept it around anyway, as it might come in handy in situations like this. “You! Stop there, I say! What are you doing in my mother’s garden?”
It was only then did he realize she was a girl. Fair haired and slender, she had the biggest doe eyes he’d ever seen. And yet, she looked somehow familiar, her face one he’d recognized from every painting and every masterpiece from every artist he’d ever studied. This was the face of Beauty herself.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that I saw a rabbit, and he was running this way. I thought I’d follow him.” Her voice did not falter, and held a mysterious air of confidence. Not something young Antone was used to encountering from a girl, much less a girl he’d just threatened with a tennis racket.
“Oh, alright then…” He toed at the ground nervously. Though it defeated his original purpose, Antone knelt down, and picked one of the geranium heads, handing it off to the lovely muse who stood before him. “I’m Antone,” He said in his most grown up, manly voice, which was to say, not very manly at all.
“I’m Melissa.” She took the flower, and sniffed it, looking uneasy a bit. “And flowers make me s-suh-snuh—SNEEZE!”
No longer were they in the garden, Antone was ducking for his dear life, covering his head in a foxhole, out fighting with the yanks and the boys from home. A missile, nigh, a grenade was flying at him at speeds of over 135 miles per hour. An explosion so grand it sent shockwaves through the ground around him.
Lifting his head, he found the geranium head to have disintegrated into a million fractals, petals strewn around them on the ground. “It’s quite alright. I understand. I’ve had a bit of trouble with the sniffles myself lately.” But his words fell upon deaf ears, or rather, no ears at all! Melissa had run away, perhaps in embarrassment. “Rats.” Antone grumbled to himself.
Days after that were spent much like the days before it, watching life roll by from his picturesque window, waiting for his next bit of inspiration to come to him, a pen in one hand, a piece of paper in the other. And often he found it in the changing seasons. But the pictures he drew lacked spark. They lacked imagination. They lacked…her.
It would be months again before he’d see her, when the leaves were just beginning to don their fall ensembles, the air becoming crisp in anticipation of the winter that would lie before them shortly. He would watch as those very same leaves would dance upon that very same air, and through it, she appeared.
It was like a dream, the way she effortlessly waltzed up the walkway, a tweed pea coat protecting her from the autumn, a chipper red hat topping off those elegant curls. And when the doorbell rang, it sent Antone cowering for his foxhole again. He could hear the voices of the two most beloved females in his life chattering away.
“Hello? I’m not sure I’ve got the right house…does Antone live here? He’s about this tall, has a thing for geraniums…You must be his mother, you look an awful lot like him,” It was his muse! Come to inspire him again! Oh the thought would make any seven year old’s heart flutter with joy!
“I’ll see if he’s available.” His mother smiled, pride swelling in her heart. It had been tough on her, all the years Antone had spent in isolation. If she could want one thing only for her son, it would be happiness in the form of a friend.
Before she could even call out his name, Antone raced out from beneath the window seat, and out the door, sending his mother’s skirts billowing up in a flutter of wind. “Hi!” He greeted Melissa, the tip of a crisp white track shoe shuffling dirt around at his feet, as was his habit.
“Hi…I came to ask you if you wanted to play today. Last time I kinda sneezed all over you.” She giggled, and tugged on his hand, tugging him towards her bicycle. It was a shiny purple monster; bits of chrome sticking out from all angles making it look fierce.
“I don’t think, I mean, are you sure it’s safe? I don’t think I want…” His words were cut off as she plopped him onto the back of the bicycle, and sat in front of him.
Together, wordlessly, cloaked in a world of happy giggles, a world of marmite sandwiches and afternoon teas; a world of songs and laughter, a world Antone thought he’d never know; together they rode off into the sunset (although there really was no sunset since they both had to be home at 3 in the afternoon, and they really didn’t ride that far, as they weren’t allowed off of their street.)

Fin.

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An Open Letter To Myself

Dear self,
I wish I had the words to express to you what I'm feeling right now. I feel angry, betrayed, righteous and fiercely scared. The words I have are actionable - all I ever write anymore. I want to fall to the pavement, scream out as the sky falls above us on this dear and dark night that's so clouded over you didn't even see the end of the world coming. I want to gnash my teeth, claw at the earth, feel bone as it drives through skin. Pound my hands against the pavement, grind my wrists against the cement until the adrenaline is pumping so loud through your veins that there's nothing but the sound of that single solitary heartbeat. Do you wonder what it's like, self? Don't you ever want to find out what it's like to be free of it all? To run until your knees give out, to breathe until your lungs collapse and just lay on the field of retribution, staring at the sun until your corneas burst into flame?

Don't you want to know, self? Don't you already know? They say there are a million and one worse things you could do in life. But aren't you already doing them, saying them, feeling them, seeing them every day and every night of your life? Don't you wish you just didn't hold back any more? Why is it always the four letter words we put the most stock in? Love? Hate? Fuck? Help? Gray? Pain? Calm? Why not the five letter words? Black. White. Scream. Shout. Spite. Anger. And what of that lonely little pitiful three letter word that you always used to know so well? Cry.

Why is it that the words you wield every day of your life are the ones that get you into so much trouble, self?? Why is it that you always choose to make a stand at the worst of times, and always prove to be a coward when it matters the most? Self, I have so many questions from you and I'm lacking some serious answers. In December we will have been together for 21 years. Twenty One Years. Two decades and a year. And yet I still know so little about you except for maybe your very odd penchant to turn things upside down.

Maybe I liked you better, Self, when you lost your voice. Maybe I liked you better when everything you were, everything you had, everything that was yours to give and take away at the wave of a hand was locked away inside a little box inside of me, leaving me a broken, hollowed out shell of a person. Maybe *I* liked it better. But what was it like for you?

Did you miss the fresh air? The blue sky? The purple sunrise? The gray sunset? Did you miss the smell of the grass after it had just rained, or the aroma of burning leaves in the fall? Did you miss the crisp cool bite of the first snowfall against your bare legs? Did you miss the sharp intake of a cool spring morning when you realized the snow was beginning to melt?

And I wonder, Self, did you even care? Should I even care? What am I to do with you? Do I hurt you, kill you, hide you or keep you? Merge with you, play with you, hold you close to my heart?

I'm hurting, Self. And you never did anything to help me. Just because I speak in four letter words and you speak in five doesn't mean we can't agree. But when it comes down to it, Self, in the very end - it's you or it's m.e.

Your friend,
Caitlin.

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I Promise I'm Not (that) Crazy will be on a brief hiatus. Because right now I really AM that crazy.

Expect a return within a week or so.

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Leech - Chapter 3

She awoke this time to a very different scene, a very different feel. Rough cotton rasped her skin, chafing against every inch of it, making her whine in discomfort. It was so much different than the luxurious satin of the night before. She was in the hospital. The beeping and buzzing of machines surrounded her. Her eyes fluttered open. Why did it seem like she was turning into the tragic heroine of a melancholy teenage tale? Her mother's cries for a nurse rung out through the room, and Christie felt the once comforting touch of her mother's hand upon her own and recoiled as though she'd been bitten.

“Mom?” Christie asked hoarsely. “What's going on?” Christie tried to sit up, but found her body unable, unwilling for the umpteenth time that day to obey her. Was it still the same day?

“Honey you've been hurt. You're in the hospital. Don't worry. I'm here.” Her mother's voice, hardened by years of smoking one cigarette after another, tried to give comfort. But somehow it wasn't enough. There was a tension there. “You're in good hands”. Her mother's hand stroked her hair, and Christie burst out crying. Her screams, screams she didn't know she had, brought the hospital staff running.

A young woman in scarlet scrubs rushed to her side, coolly checked her vital signs and guided her to a recumbent position again. “You've been raped,” the nurse checked her chart, feigning some sort of consideration, “Christine. You're fine, physically. There's nothing out of place and nothing where it shouldn't be. But you've taken a big shock, physically and emotionally. You're going to need the support of your family for this.” The nurse glanced over Christie's head to her mother, who looked as though she'd aged several years more for the ordeal. Faded dye gave way to gray roots. There were more of them than Christie remembered.

“You've been in the hospital for two days. You've just woken up. Give yourself some time to recover. You don't have to talk about your experience, but confide in your mother. She's your support. She won't judge you.” And with that, the nurse turned and left. Christie followed her, glaring the entire way. Her bedside manner could use a little work. The nurse turned to make a note on the chart on her door, and smiled at Christie. For an instant, Christie could see the woman for who she really was – voluptuous, green skinned, horns fangs and all. Christie began to sob.

“Does Dad....” Christie's voice trailed off, looking to her mother with pleading eyes, sobs momentarily suspended. Her mother nodded, setting off a new wave of sobs for the both of them.

“I'm so sorry honey. So sorry. I don't know how this happened, and nobody saw anything. But we'll stand by you. It doesn't matter what happens, but your father and I are here for you. This wasn't your fault.”

It was. Christie thought. It was my fault. I made myself a target. She didn't say these things aloud. But her mind was reeling with the numerous things that she could have, should have, would have done differently had she been given the chance. “When can I go home?” Christie asked, unsure whether home would be of any more comfort. Her father would be there. And she had shamed him. His only girl, his precious little girl...no longer. She was more afraid of the hurt she would see in his eyes than anything that could have or did happen.

“I'll call for a nurse and get your things, honey.” Christie's mother leaned over the railing of the hospital bed and kissed her daughter's forehead. Christie wondered, untangling the mess of tubes that ran from her hands, finding her fingers on her stomach. How could someone harbor so much love for a leech that sapped the life from them. Would she love her child just as much? The last words spoken by Daniel, the ones she had not heard clearly upon her departure fronm hell, echoed in her brain and she sighed.

“Life is what you make of it, sweetheart. I'm just here to fuck it up for you”.

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Leech - Chapter 2

Christie could feel the heat before she ever opened her eyes. Sweat rolled down every surface of her body, and her eyes, though closed, stung with the errant moisture. She tried to raise a hand to wipe away the fluid, but she found she could not. Her eyes shot open and Christie tried to bolt upright – such a cliché move from every nightmare shown in every movie on every television in the world – but the painful yelp that escaped her lips made it quite apparent she could not move. What the hell was going on?

“What the hell indeed, my pretty little pet.” The man's voice seemed to break her amnesiatic reverie. The car. The two people. Her way home. Her watch. Where was her watch? What the hell? And had she said that out loud?

Christie took stock of her surroundings, as much as she was able to. She found she could move her head from side to side, but the rest of her had been restrained. She could not move anything. It was hot. Unbearably, unbelievably hot. Despite this, a cool, clammy breeze seemed to waft across her skin. It was a feeling that evoked memories of days spent at the shore. Of times spent next to the sea, when the salty breeze would leave her skin briny and caked. At the memory of it, her nose perked up. She could smell the shore. But make no mistake, the crashing sound that could so easily be mistaken for waves was her own blood pounding in her ears.

“I've been watching you, Christine.” The man perched on a carpeted ledge not so far away from her, The entire décor was plush and rich. The room was spacious, and nothing like she had seen before. Maybe in the city somewhere, but not her little town. No way in hell.

“Don't call me Christine,” she spat with all the venom her voice could muster. It was quickly becoming apparent she had been captive. The handsome man on the street looked at her with an amused cock of his head.

“You're not really in any position, you know, to be telling me what I can and cannot do.” He hopped down from his perch with the grace of a bird – a bird of prey circling in on its victim. Christie was suddenly aware of eyes upon her. Not just her captors, but others too. She couldn't make out faces or specifics, but the lingering shadows of the rooms, filled with pillows and covered in gossamer tents, held observers. It dawned on her in an acute fashion that she was not wearing what she had been earlier. Her clothing, the dark and bestudded attire of her choosing, had been replaced with a plain white nightgown. Christie couldn't decide if it reminded her of a grandmother or a small child. She suspected the latter was her captor's intent.

With fear and humiliation, she realized at some point she had been naked. She was wearing nothing beneath the silken gown. Her captor could have done any number of things while she was asleep.

“No worries, malinky, you were tended to by someone other than myself. I assure you, as much as it can be reassuring that no harm has befallen you.” He smirked, a delightfully deviant smirk. Despite her situation, Christie couldn't compel the shiver that it sent down her spine to cease.

“Now,” he continued, “I'm going to make the classic mistake that all your beloved movie characters make. I'm going to tell you my plans.” Christie felt tears welling in her eyes. She knew what happened to girls who were kidnapped. She knew what happened to them, and then some. A girl she'd known all of her life had been kidnapped last year. They found her body in an old well, mutilated beyond bearing and bloated to the point where she was almost goo.

“Do not worry, malinky, I intend to make this as painless as possible for you.” He was close enough now to touch her, a rough and work hardened hand stroking her cheek. She turned to bite him, and was met with a sharp slap across the face. “But do not test my patience. I am not your captor, I am merely a worker, doing as he is told. I have no more choice in this than you do.” Was that regret she heard in his voice? Her heart cracked for a moment, before she steeled her expression again. She couldn't empathize with this man. No matter what he said. For all she knew it could be a pretty lie...from pretty lips.

“You have been given a drug. One that will render you unable to resist advances made, unable to fight what will be done to your body. One that will allow you to take yourself out of your body for a time, to escape what will be done. This is a small kindness. Do not make me regret it.”

The moment he said it, she was buried in her memories again.


The waves were crashing on the sand dunes. It was a storm, but it was a light summer rain that didn't ruin her day out. She and her family had gone to the beach for the day. Her family had their own campsite under a large and rainbow hued umbrella. Amy had come with them. Amy was always one of the family – her own didn't give a damn enough to acknowledge her presence, much less take her on vacation anywhere. A day at the beach with a friend was a luxury for both of them. Christie's little brother Henry was running through the waves, screaming and shouting and splashing. She could hear her mother's voice from beneath the umbrella, calmly calling Henry back to camp. Henry was autistic. He didn't grasp that if he were in the water when, if, a lightening storm hit, he would be in deep trouble.

Amy and Christie had their own campsite, beyond the dunes and further away from the water. She could hear her family, but Christie's family could not see her or Amy, knowing how important it was for teenage girls to have their privacy. Amy and Christie lay on their beach towels, letting the gentle rain soak their skin, matting sand and sea grasses to their skin. Amy was wearing a bikini – Amy had the body to pull it off. Christie, as typical, was in a black, generic one piece swimsuit. Nothing to see here.

But that's where the memory faded, changed, warped somehow. She and Amy were kissing. Hands were exploring each other. The fear of discovery close in her mind, of her family just over the mountain of sand. Her eyes were shut. Amy's fingers explored her body, and a yelp of pain forced her eyes open....

...and she awoke again. This time she was not just drenched in sweat. There were other things too. Unfamiliar smells, feelings, fluids. But the overwhelming scent of blood. There were murmurs from the tents, and her captor was reclining on his perch. “Go back to sleep, Katerinamira, you've been through quite a bit.” Christie ground her teeth, and found her whole body ached with even this simple act, protesting as though a freight train had run over it.

“What the hell did you do to me?” she growled, her voice hoarse, as though she had been screaming for quite some time. She observed she was wearing something different this time. The fabric had a similar silky feeling, but it was red. Bright red.

“Well, dear,” he abandoned his foreign pet names for a moment, a bemused smirk crossing those lush lips again as he rolled over to stare at her. “If all goes according to plan, and it always does, in about nine months you'll have an even bigger surprise.

The shock of his words hit her. “You?” she stammered. “Or.....”
“Hard to say dear, but I'm almost quite certain, since you were my catch, that you are mine. In body anyway. Your heart? Who's to say? That drug can have some odd effects. Your soul? Well...if you have one, undoubtedly that's mine too. But you've been marked, and you've been had.”

Christie tried to shoot out of her position again, finding this time her bonds were loosened. She lunged at this stranger, this scum...this rapist. Dark black fingernails gouged for skin, eyes, anything. Nails scraping, fists pounding, tears falling from her eyes. She flailed and kicked, dragging her captor from his perch. No one from the gossamer tents came to aid him.

And her captor, surprisingly agile and strong for such a slight build, easily pinned her to the perch with just a hand. Christie gasped, partly from shock and partly from some other as of yet unnamed emotion. A long, bleeding gash she had left on his cheek healed seamlessly before her widened gray eyes.

They gazed at each other for a long moment. Her clouded eyes against his crystalline lapis ones. “What are you?” she rasped. “What the hell are you?”

“Morningstar. Lucifer. Incubus. Satan, Devil, Demon. I've been called a million and one things over the years, child. But it hardly matters. Please, call me Daniel.” He laughed, a crisp clear laugh. It was as if none of this meant anything to him. And it probably didn't. “And yes, hell is an apt term. Although we've upgraded a bit since the whole 'fire and brimstone' thing went out of vogue.”

Christie shook her head, squirming to try and loosen his grasp on her. This had to be a dream. Amy had to have given her something. She had to be tripping. She'd never done drugs in her life. Could they do something like this to her?

“It isn't a dream. It isn't a hallucination, Katarinamina, it's truth. Look around you. Open those pretty little eyes of yours and look.” And she did.

She saw herself, as though from above, clad in a red silk nightgown, something only fit for a whore. She saw the beautiful stranger above her, creating an odd mix of his angles against her curves. She saw the gossamer tents part. Half animal half humanoid creatures peeked their heads out. Male and female...it was obvious who was who. The females were in various stages of pregnancy. Some clasped small hybrid things to their naked, heaving breasts. The posh appearance she had seen earlier permeated the entire room. In enclaves around the room were girls...girls of every nationality, every race, every appearance, chained to the walls. They were bleeding, hurting, dying. Their eyes were blank. They didn't care what happened.

“Those were the first, malinky. Those were my practice toys. You,” he traced the line of her cheek again, and this time his fingers caught her tears as though they were small diamonds, glittering on her skin. “They didn't fare too well. Now they wait to die. But you...” His voice trailed off, and so did his hands. She closed her legs tighter, trying to fend him off. He caught a short laugh, placing his hand on her stomach. “You, my darling, you carry life. My life.”

Christie shook her head. She couldn't believe it. She didn't want to believe it. But beneath his hand something stirred. Something inside of her. She knew. She knew it all. The drug he'd given her had spared her the memories of what he'd done – the hours of rape, debasement, sexual depravity. But in that instant she knew, without having been there for it, knew what had happened.

“So I'm not a...” her voice caught in her throat. Daniel shook his head. “And am I ever going home?” He smiled. “You will, my dear. But don't think that means I'll abandon you. Not you and your precious cargo.”

“Why?” It was a simple question, whispered in a meek voice.

His words fell upon her deaf ears for again, it was too much for her to take. The world spun before her eyes, and she was unconscious again.

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