The clever fox cornered me.

He was wearing a cloak drenched with the scent of the ocean. His tail, wet with the subtle touch of his yearning for my surrender. He told me to let go. To crumble the proud castle walls and have him peeked in my unbecoming. I wasn’t shivering nor was I frightened. Fear has eluded me. I was welcoming his lure. Catching it between my teeth, and tasting the bitter lull in my tongue. He claimed that it was better this way. He could see me anticipating it. The embers of my restraints, now gone. A new fire—is replaced. A slow yet inextinguishable fire. I was coaxing death, in my hands. He placed the pen in my hand, asking me to write myself bared for his personal disposal. Cleverly taunting me, as I try and look about for an excuse to say 'No'. I could hear his breathing, maneuver its way to my subconscious, like the languid call of a sensual tango.


I took the pen, and all at once, as if my pen-hand has a mind of its own. I wrote myself in a platter served with olive oil and chimney soot. I wrote myself fragranced with the scent of jasmine and green apples. I wrote myself festering with wounds and scars. I wrote myself panting and screaming, clawing my words slowly then faster. I was literally masturbating my image on paper. All the filth that cripples and glamours me and my father’s name, all written in my own shaky handwriting. 

I was reborn as an Innocent once more, clothed in starlight and all the womanly wiles that branded witches on fire pits. Remembering simpler memories of chasing my young cousins in mangroves and feeling the monsoon rain on my naive skin. Remembering the arsenic lull of first heartbreak, and the pain that stained in your veins as you aged in riped maturity. Remembering feminine rage of subdued tears ducttaped at the back of my mind, as I am told to be quiet and stay quiet. Remembering all that became of me and ends with me.


The clever fox was watching me intently.

He was a curious audience to this dance solely performed for him alone. Or so, he thought. And there I was, unbridled, self-taming myself for the suffocation of pretending.

 Not anymore. Tonight—in this very hour, I am skinning the corners of my identity. I am grappling at the edge of my pen. Sweating as I masterfully unclothed my reflection. I could hear an ovation in my head, as I write on. 

This is where I should be. 

This is what I should be doing.

Regression, catharsis in all its pleasurable abandon.

The clever fox was still staring, as I wipe my brow. 

He didn’t offer to stop. He maintained poker-faced. But his eyes gave away an animal’s approval, like a laden grumble of a hungry beast. And I, panting scribbling my memoirs in the open space and ink-fingers. I was nipping around his claws around my neck. Feeling his capture of me, tightening his grasp, as I moan in exhaustion and content. I could hear the grand sonata coming to an end, its delectable finale reaching the pinnacle, and I, hanging on the top, ready to free-fall in the earth’s hungry mouth. I obliged. I offered my flesh and soul, spreading my wings—broken and battered, I let go.

I lay on the floor of my subconscious, purring and sighing. I feel—magical. Tonight, at this exact minute and until eternity, until the Otherside. 

I am to be called—Phoenix.

The clever fox smiled at me, but I didn’t.

I just closed my eyes and felt myself return to the soil.

 In the earth’s embrace, in that someone’s place. 

Into the mouth of the sun, that never sets. 










(Writer's note: this was an old piece that I wrote awhile back, it's actually a series of murder mystery entries, about a serial killer suffering from writer's block, and kills talented writers by having them write their work for him before he kills them. This was his seventh victim. )