Me Cut You Up

Those days most weekend nights we were in the studio cutting binding marks into each other’s skin- me with my fresh Xacto you with your scalpels. Those were the days we couldn’t go for a walk to the market without running into some toxic half-sentient nonsense trying to embody itself out of gutter filth. We were conscientious citizens then; we didn’t leave that shit there. Most kids we knew would probably have just burned it all out where they found it but we’d had that talk, you and I had, we’d had that talk about wantonly destroying sentience when there was so much less of it every day. Bind them to ourselves, we’d know where they are, and we’d be the only people who could employ them should we eventually desire. Persuasive argument when both sides are making it, and besides, at fourteen years old? History will note that teenagers can get pretty effective at something if they pursue it obsessively. We did get quite good at it.

We’d be heading home from school, or a movie, or some rehearsal, and there in the gutter we’d see it, leaves and drainage sludge throbbing and whistling and noticing us. Making the vague face-like shapes in the air and speaking. Those were still the days when a lot of people on the streets wouldn’t have noticed this happening to them.

I WILL STRANGLE CHILDREN; YOUR EYES WILL GO OUT

To which we would yell something like, “I AM THE SILENCE INCOMPRENSIBLE AND I AM THE THOUGHT REMEMBERED OFTEN, BE YE GONE FROM GOD’S HOLY SLIME IN THE NAME OF ALL THE PLANETS”

And usually that’d be that and they’d be gone from God’s holy slime. But every now and then, you know, one would talk back. Vivid hallucinations would start. Some hellish trip or other; endless gore scenarios, crushing feelings of self-hatred, guilt, revolting pornographic dormitories, slaughterhouse processionals. And me and you, just gleefully yelling back and forth to each other

“I WAS SENT FROM THE POWER!”

“AND I HAVE COME TO THOSE WHO THINK UPON ME!”

“AND I WAS FOUND AMONG THOSE WHO SEEK AFTER ME!”

“LOOK YOU WHO THINK UPON ME!”

“BE ON GUARD!”

“I AM THE MEMBERS OF MY MOTHER!”

By then the air would generally be calm and we’d catch them on paper bring them back to the studio and get down to cutting the marks. You had your style of cutting and I had mine, so I was covered in yours and you were covered in mine. Aside from the markings we’d put on ourselves before we met each other. You had more of those than I did. The thing about scars is they’re permanent. You can bind something into yourself, keep it out of the world, but if you don’t burn it out, it’s still in you, and you’re still in the world. Like I said, most kids would have burned the thing right out in the wild. Likewise, most people, if they’d cut something malevolent and almost sentient into their flesh, would stick their flesh in the appropriate fire immediately. Those people also… wouldn’t have understood. You always said this.

We tried hard to keep all of the marks in places others wouldn't easily see. The bottoms of the feet, the armpits, inside of the knee. There weren't a lot of those places. So we saw each other unclothed for the first time, and many many times. Our bodies and hands became powerful to each other.

You cut something that we found near the bus station into the inside of my right thigh when we were sixteen years old and since then I've been able to see around corners and in the dark. When that happened we didn't know this was something that could happen. Later that year I cut something into you and you never needed to eat again. All the other kids were still just burning them and giggling. Most people still didn't seem to notice them at all.

It was all we really did, for a time. Hunt, cut, rest. Those were the days we were starting to go a little overboard with it. My entire body above the knee and below the chest was scarified and it was getting harder and harder to ignore the side effects as they intensified. Your presence was terrifying no matter the situation. A lot of regular people couldn’t be on the same block as you without losing it. And why not? You were sent from THE POWER. And it was hilarious, because no one else had any idea what was going on. But I think after a while we wanted to be good people. And I think that’s when some of our problems began.