Back Again. Er.. Again.

So, Sometimes you have to fall off the face of the earth. I've gone to ground with nary a resurfacing in months. Lots of things happened, significant to me but probably not that interesting. Also forgetting your password and your username is not conductive to good blogging. In short, summers and new beginnings in life, but in small ordinary ways. Sometimes you renew your lease but it's all routine and water under the bridge. So I'm a little less emo, a little more... me. I'm not sure if this blog is now obsolete,but, as always, I post into the void, and the void weighs the worthiness of a response.

So anyway, I thought after such a long absence, better come bearing gifts. Small, but heartfelt.

We were born to be heroes, you and I, that is our fate. We are humanity's last great hope. We are our last attempt at a good thing. We built the world, height upon height, we rose up reaching for the sky. We thought we could leave the mess, the grit and dirt of humanity behind. Reaching out to the clean expanse of sky, dirtying it as we reached. We spread and multiplied, full of ambition and hubris, brushing aside the pain and squalor of the seething masses. Little did we know that from that squalor would rise our downfall. So rose the end of the world, born of pain and misery and fear. So our numbers dwindled down to nothing and we withered away. And so, here we are, you and I, heads raised about to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. To defend the fate of a species that has led us down the road to hell, with their good intentions and ambition. Then they left us here, living in the shadows of what they have wrought, mere skeletons now. Left us with hollow husks, laying under this blotted out sun. What a legacy they’ve left us, cadavers, monoliths, useless, a tribute to a pointless race whose outcome has been lost to time. This is what we have chosen to defend, have been chosen to sacrifice our lives for. To preserve humanity, the feeble remains of the seething masses. We’re broken, you and I, the lonely relics of a proud race. We will stand, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, on the frontlines of this battle. We will fight. For our lives, for their lives, for the future, whatever its worth, we will fight. Fight and die and be forgotten. Like those who have brought us to this point. Die for the fleeting wish for existence. Die for the faint hope that we will prevail. Never has a battle been fought for something so insignificant, never has a battle been fought for something so profound. We were born to be heroes, you and I, that is our misfortune.

Mama Weer All Crazee Now

Or I am at least.

The following is not at all connected to Wet Works. Or possibly completely connected.

Disclaimer the First: I have much respect for human life, I do. In Real Life, I’m quite the pacifist. This is just too little sleep, too much caffeine, end of term jitters, and a well meaning and usually lovable friend who would not just shut the hell up even though I was not in the effin mood. Not a psycho, just like to play one on TV.

Disclaimer the Second: The following material is of a graphic and disturbing nature. If you've got any qualms about murder or torture in fiction you should give this a miss.


If I were to kill you, this is how I would do it. The room would be empty of furniture, stark clean lines, no color on the walls, no covering on the ground. Well lit center, edges in shadow so that you can wonder if there was an exit out there somewhere. I’d like to have you hung from your wrists, but it would be too much of a cliché. Instead I’d have you on a table, ankles and wrists bound tight, stretched out in a nod to the medieval. Black Sabbath’s Paranoid would be on constant repeat, to prevent things from getting too somber. No blindfold because that would rob me of the pleasure of your expressive face.

We would be alone, you and I, with no one around to hear you scream. And trust me, you will scream. You’ll resist at first, choke them down, but I’ll rip them from your throat until it bleeds, and then I’ll make you scream some more. See my plans for you are much bigger than a happy dagger slipped softly between your ribs. I’m going to take my time with you.

I’ll let you admire my large, shiny hunting knife; twist it this way and that in the bright lights, letting it glint cheerfully at you. It would rest briefly at your temple before traveling oh so slowly down your face. I’m going to use it to lightly trace your neck, sinews tight with fear, down down, collar bone, fluttering chest, heaving sides before stopping just below your navel.

Just as panic begins to set in, filling the room with the wet rattle of your breathing, I’ll pause. Frowning and feigning reluctance I’ll pull away and wait for the guarded hope to slip into your eyes before plunging in to the hilt. My grip will tighten on the handle before I pull up. I wonder how much resistance your body will put up as I split you open.

I’m not going to eviscerate you. Entrails are all good and well in theory, but the reality tends to be too messy. That said I don’t know how I’ll resist the lure of being elbow deep, and tinkering around with your blood warm insides. The liver is supposed to hold your body temperature for ages I've heard.

Will you beg? Will you cry? Cover everything in tears and sweat and snot and the stench of your fear? Will you be worth all the work, all the quiet preparation? I put in a lot of time and effort for you, you know.

“Shhhhhhh,” I’d whisper to you stroking your face with a maternal touch. I’d press my lips gently to the top of your head and lovingly smooth back your hair. I’d solemnly look into your terrified eyes before slashing your throat and stepping back to watch your life bleed away.

If Blood Be the Price of Admiralty

300 words of Fiction

I wake up to you wrapped around me warm and pliant with sleep. Your breath is hot and wet on my shoulder and my heart is breaking. So this is goodbye. Turning to face you shouldn’t hurt this bad. My hands on your face, and I brush kisses over every part. Your nose, your eyes, your cheekbones. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. Your fingers tighten on my hips but I know that you can’t hold on. This is us, maybe for the last time, soft and drowsy, thigh to thigh and hip to hip.

Last night was about holding on, your lower lip trapped between my teeth, and a bruise beneath you collar bone. Last night was fierce and desperate, and staystaystay. Last night were the last tears I had left to shed. Last night was sweat slick bodies slipping against one another and sliding away in desperation. This morning is about connection and affection between the crumpled sheets where our scents mingle.

I’ve promised not to wait for you. I didn’t lie, I didn’t need to. Waiting is moot. I will never find anyone else because you have ruined me for all mankind. After you everyone seems flat and colorless, like they’re not really there. I will never drink my fill of you, not even if we had all eternity, but even if I never see you again I will be content. I found my one.

My lips on your jaw, my lashes on your face, my legs, my hips, my finger tips, they all say the same things to you. Be safe, be happy, do great things, come back to me. But most of all they say, god I’m going to miss you. I hold you tight to me and ignore the whispers that say this is the last time.

END

Title comes from Rudyard Kipling's The Song of the Dead.

Hear now the Song of the Dead -- in the North by the torn berg-edges --
They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges.
Song of the Dead in the South -- in the sun by their skeleton horses,
Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust
of the sear river-courses.

Song of the Dead in the East -- in the heat-rotted jungle hollows,
Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof --
in the brake of the buffalo-wallows.
Song of the Dead in the West --
in the Barrens, the waste that betrayed them,
Where the wolverene tumbles their packs
from the camp and the grave-mound they made them;
Hear now the Song of the Dead!


I

We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town;
We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need,
Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead.
As the deer breaks -- as the steer breaks -- from the herd where they graze,
In the faith of little children we went on our ways.
Then the wood failed -- then the food failed -- then the last water dried --
In the faith of little children we lay down and died.
On the sand-drift -- on the veldt-side -- in the fern-scrub we lay,
That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way.
Follow after -- follow after! We have watered the root,
And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit!
Follow after -- we are waiting, by the trails that we lost,
For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host.
Follow after -- follow after -- for the harvest is sown:
By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own!

When Drake went down to the Horn
And England was crowned thereby,
'Twixt seas unsailed and shores unhailed
Our Lodge -- our Lodge was born
(And England was crowned thereby!)

Which never shall close again
By day nor yet by night,
While man shall take his life to stake
At risk of shoal or main
(By day nor yet by night).

But standeth even so
As now we witness here,
While men depart, of joyful heart,
Adventure for to know
(As now bear witness here!)


II

We have fed our sea for a thousand years
And she calls us, still unfed,
Though there's never a wave of all her waves
But marks our English dead:
We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest,
To the shark and the sheering gull.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

There's never a flood goes shoreward now
But lifts a keel we manned;
There's never an ebb goes seaward now
But drops our dead on the sand --
But slinks our dead on the sands forlore,
From the Ducies to the Swin.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid it in!

We must feed our sea for a thousand years,
For that is our doom and pride,
As it was when they sailed with the ~Golden Hind~,
Or the wreck that struck last tide --
Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef
Where the ghastly blue-lights flare.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' bought it fair!

And the Truth Shall Set You Free

Then again, maybe not.

Non-fiction.

Tossing and turning in bed for hours until I give up sleep for a lost cause, I emerge from my room to haunt the house’s hallways, eerily empty in the dark. The house seems sad and lonely without the daytime’s buzz of activity. My family is quieter than most, but never this quiet. Parents and siblings all tucked in and sound asleep.

My days are all turned around and try as I might, I can’t seem to put things right. My body is weighed down with exhaustion but my mind refuses to give me reprieve. Hours grasping at the sandman in futility but he won’t come as long as my pulse keeps racing with unspecified anxiety. The future lurks hungrily at the edges of my vision waiting to devour me.

Attempting to escape my fate, I disassociate myself from the world around me. I’ve been stumbling around for days in a fugue state, avoiding reality. The tartness of under ripened strawberries is shocking on my tongue, and it seems to me the first real thing I’ve felt in days.

I feel trapped and vaguely panicked, like a rat suspecting that there’s no real way out of the maze. My eyes have started to linger a little too long on sharp implements so I make an effort to avoid being around anything sharper than the butter knife. The small cuts on my arms, long healed, have started to itch. Over and over I trace a crescent shaped scar on my leg. It’s faded almost to nothing. Over four years have passed since I heated a small spoon with a lighter’s flame and took it to my flesh.

Bits and Pieces

Sometimes contentment is curling up with a dystopian (my favorite kind of literature) graphic novel and a cup of hot apple cider (Second Cup, you rock). Sometimes it’s spending the night with chili cheese fries and a cherry coke from Johnny Rocket’s and season one of Stargate (going awww at the titanium gatesheild).

Sometimes contentment is spending time with your family in full view of a twilight sky that would not have looked out of place in a renascence painting. Sometimes it’s hanging out with your uncles (who you adore) over smoldering coals and talking over everything from Good Will Hunting to the crappy music they used to listen to when they were kids.

Sometimes contentment is someone letting you know that what you do matters (thank you Krispy). Sometimes it is finding your best friend online for the first time in ages and poking fun at her just like you did in high school.

Other times it’s very far away, not at all important, and all you have is 200 words of fiction.

Short? Yes. Sweet? You tell me.

I haven’t gotten rid any of Ari’s stuff. People have dropped a few hints about helping me find some sort of charity to which I could donate some of his things. The truth is, I haven’t even started packing things away. I still pay rent on his place, and when I’m there it seems like I’m there waiting for him to get ready so that we can go already. He's always late, and I'm always impatient. Impatient for what, I'm not really sure. For more opportunities to strike out I guess. A little pool, a few beers, you’d think I’d loosen up some but I just can’t talk to chicks like he can. He’s always been the suave one where as I tend to impress with my amazing powers of stumbling over every word I say. No complaints though, some chicks are into the whole bumbling fool thing, so it’s not like I never hook up.

The thing is, of the two of us, I've always been the more dispensable. I’m the one with no attachments to speak of, no significant academic presence, the one with the transitory lifestyle. If my life had ended that night the ripples that would have been caused would have been very small, infinitesimal. And yet I’m the one left to knock around in my empty life.

That’s why it seemed so much simpler to get rid of my stuff instead.

Waste Not Want Not

Despite being more than a little attached to my mind, my mind tends to find bloody imagery more interesting than other things at the moment.

Well, bloody imagery and handball, since it’s the only national team that gives us reason to be proud. So we kicked the Irani team’s collective ass and breezed through to Thursday’s finals. Some moments in today’s game our players truly were poetry in motion, and the Qatari commentator whole-heartedly agreed judging by his flowery sometimes hilarious metaphors. Go Blues. We may get something glittery *and* gold methinks.

Anyway, back to the wet works. A continuation of last post’s piece.

Blood. Lots of it slicking my hands as I tried in vain to staunch the flow. Had the bullet hit his thigh just inches to either direction Ari would still be alive. Instead his femoral was ruptured and he gasped out his last breaths in front of me, his hands and mine covered in his blood. So much blood, its smell so strong that I could taste it. Coppery tang and I kept gagging, but I couldn’t throw up until they came and took him away. Only then could I let my stomache rebel and the pavement was baptized with both our insides.

That was the first time I saw a gun up close. But the killing urge didn’t come then. Even after Ari’s death I still saw academia as a warm protective cocoon that would protect me from the harshness of the outside world. It was months before she revealed herself to be a fickle mistress who would lead you to your death as soon as warm your bed. I was naive enough to believe that we were victims of a random mugging, and it never crossed my mind that it was Ari’s research that put an end to my best friend’s life. Metzger may not have carried the bullet but a few whispers into the right ears and I watched the only family I had bleed out on a sidewalk. It was seven months and four days ago that I found out.

I finally get why he was so sympathetic, so understanding. At the time I was pathetically grateful for his presence. Right now I’m just glad that all I’d sobbed to him about was worthless sentimental crap about growing up in Ari’s shadow. I wonder how soon I would have joined Ari in the nether world if Metzger had gotten what he needed out of me. Now if only I’d get what he needed out of me, I’d know where to go from here.

Unfortunately, Ari and I hardly ever talked about work when we got together, which means I’m going to have to go through everything. This scares the shit out of me. Ari was brilliant, and not in my wildest dreams could I hope to come close. I only hope I can piece together what it was that got him killed before I end up in the ground alongside of him.

A Terrible Thing To Temporarily Lose Track Of

River Tam from Firefly (The Academy), Ender Wiggin from Ender’s Game (Battle School), Jared from The Pretender (The Center). Beautiful, terrible piece of fanfiction about post-Atlantis Rodney Mckay from Stargate: Atlantis.

A week of fantasies fueled by an amalgam of the above. I tend to live long hours in worlds of my own construction. Happiness is boring, pain is interesting. Sometimes they are worth writing, oftentimes not. I don’t fetishize pain (much), but I tend to lean towards flawed broken characters, because I find them more interesting. I may have an overly analytical mind.

Result.

I wipe my hands on the thighs of my jeans, leaving damp patches I can feel through the denim. It wouldn’t do to have a slippery trigger finger when the time comes. Time. It’s been seven months and four days since I decided to kill him. Six months since I bought the Berretta, 92, military, supposedly untraceable to me. Five months of trekking out to the northwest corner of nowhere and shooting tin cans into the dirt.

A sniper rifle would have been safer, but it meant more time and more effort. More than three months to be a decent shot and two more to be a great one. Plus, I wanted to smell his blood. I wanted to see his face, wanted to see the change from warm familiarity to shock.

I shower, shave, and put on my best suit. Put on my gloves; smooth Italian leather, bought special for the occasion. I arrange and rearrange my hair, adjust my tie, once, twice, three times. I feel like a girl getting ready for her first date. On my way out I stop by the picture one more time. I brush my hand across our faces, bright and jovial at last year’s faculty Christmas party. Arms over one another’s shoulders, faces flushed with drink, and I remember feeling so… fraternal. We could have been brothers, once upon a time. I feel fond, almost tender. I almost rethink what I’m about to do. Almost, because some secrets should never see the light of day.

The sidewalk is covered in gray slush and my feet are wet, but I can still feel sweat pooling at the base of my spine. My heart is in a marathon pushing through that final pain barrier in the last stretch, just a little faster, just a little longer. I finger the pretty in my coat pocket and keep my feet from picking up the pace. Musn’t be overeager.

It’s over much too fast for my liking. Recognition, pleasure, fear, anger, resignation flash too fast across his face. The first shot rings out loud, the other two less so. The crowd swells and closes. I slip away easily; the 92 down a sewer grate farther down the street. I regret not being closer. My mind toys with what it might have been like to feel the warmth of blood on my face, a small discreet splatter, but blunt objects are inconvenient.

He was my first kill, but I have a strong suspicion he will not be my last.

Snowball's Chance in a Blizzard

Fact

Week the third of starving myself to a better me and my mind is starting to rebel. Calorie intake fluctuating between the low 800s and high 500s. My temper and concentration are starting to suffer, but fuck it. 40 kilos overweight isn’t pretty, and I’m sick of this. Part of it may be rebellion against my parents for forcing their perspective of beauty on me. Most of the time I’m fine with myself, but I’m sick of being pressured to fit into their version of what I should look like. Maybe I’ll try refusing to eat, something different than my usual MO, see how they like how fucking with my head for I don’t know how many years backfiring. Something you should know about me, most of my motivations have to do with my parents.

Sort of Fiction

I knew a girl who wore a small silver razorblade that hung from a black leather thong she wore around her neck. One day I asked her why. Her mouth tightened as she held it, blunt edges digging into thumb and forefinger. She told me it was protection against the dark. I knew of no talisman that involved razorblades. She raised an eloquent shoulder and said that sometimes the symbolism was the only thing that kept her from taking the real thing to her wrists. She pressed it fondly to her lips and let it fall back between her breasts.

Tell Me How

Sometimes I am vibrant, a rainforest teeming with life, pleasant and not. Other times I am a dry withered husk, holding ghosts, half-remembered. Between brief moments of being fertile ground full of slowly unfurling ideas, I am sterile and unforgiving terrain.

I wonder what it would have been like to love you. I would have collected your smiles, hoarded and treasured them. I would have learned you, and recognized the shadows in your eyes. If I couldn’t brush them away I would stroke your brow and we could share our solitude. I would have cherished every bit of you, even the ones you would do without. I would have kissed your hurts away, even those I couldn’t see. I may not have embraced your quirks and differences but I would have accepted you, which is infinitely more important. I would have tried to coax softness into your eyes and done my hardest to paint laugh lines at the corners of your eyes and mouth. I would not have tried to mold you, only let us temper each other. My fingers would have traced intricate patterns on the inside of your wrist. I would have been held captive by the curve of your jaw. I might have become a student of your lines and arches, and loved architecture. My love would not have been a gentle thing; it would burn fiercely in my chest. If the choice were mine I do not know that I would have chosen that fate. When the wind blows from a certain place, I feel sorrow that I was not able.

I read a story. It was about loss and acceptance. It was about survival. It was about leaving behind love and the horrors of grave responsibility all intertwined. It was about holding on and letting go, and staying true to a memory. It was about many things, and it hurt. The ache lies beneath my lower rib, and in the nexus of throat and collar bone. It left me with wet cheeks and a dry mouth. It was beautiful. Its title came from a Janis Joplin song. It lies in sci-fi fandom, but holds so much human truth. Fiction has broken s me apart and put me together so many times, I no longer recognize my starting point. I wish I knew if I was better for it or worse.

On a mostly unrelated note, it wasn’t just endearing children’s books that Kipling wrote.

Guess Who's Back, Back Again

SnoCone's back, tell a friend.

I come back to you ripping off Eminem and stumbling in disheveled and pretending to be unrumpled.

Long story short, I went away, had fun, did some sightseeing, came back, stuttered to a halt, struggled with some stuff, straightened some other stuff out, and here I am.

For a more detailed explanation of my struggle with parents and society I give you this. Written as a sort of catharsis.


They came with their fresh faces and practical hiking boots, crashing and stomping away the green tinted silence. Eyes round with feelings I could longer recognize, they asked me how I became part of this tree. This is what I told them.

Until the moment I had become what I am, I had no intention of being this way. In fact, I hadn’t even intended to stay the night, but I was lost and the sun had set. This seemed as safe a place as any. There was a small hollow at the base of this tree that seemed to have been made for me. Come rest a while, it whispered, surely there’s no other place you need to be at this very moment. And I really was tired.

The next day I opened my eyes to the sun dappled serenity and thought to myself, what a nice place, maybe I’ll stay here a few days. So I did. The woods were peaceful and my tree provided me with food and shelter. It was refreshing to be in a place where I wasn’t hounded by everyday life, and my sole responsibility was brushing away the green tendrils that grew as I slept and wound themselves around me overnight. Sometimes I thought of leaving but the woods would ask me why? and I’d feel a strong urge to curl up in my hollow and sleep. The days ran together like the paints of a watercolor left out in the rain. My voice lost the jarring quality of the city and started to resemble the whispers between the leaves and wind that were all I heard. It became harder for me to extricate myself from the soft green wisps every morning; it seemed pointless to leave the tree’s embrace. The things I needed grew closer in proximity. I knew there was a world other than this, but it grew smaller and further away all the time. Despite never feeling true satisfaction with how I was, I was never discontent except when I was overcome with strange feelings. I had small short bursts of discomfort, when I felt like there was something trying to strangle me and smother my breath. It was as if a fiery being was trying to crawl its way out of my throat. I’d choke and pant and try to scream, then it would subside and I’d be left shaking and confused. Other times I felt a powerful yearning for something I could no longer describe. It felt like a cold hand had a closed over something in my chest, and was trying to wrench it out. I would cry out my loss in mournful wails.

Throughout all this there was a word that kept haunting me. Freedom. I tried to understand what it was but its meaning kept eluding me. Smokelike and hazy, it kept drifting just outside my reach. I tried not to let my mind linger on it because it carried with it an aura of pain. My curiosity towards it was brief and fleeting and soon it was banished to the fringes of my consciousness, forgotten but for the short-lived periods when it struggled to the surface.

Soon, it made sense not to dislodge the vines the curled themselves around my torso, and they grew thicker and took root. My resentment towards the tree faded away. I grew to embrace my captivity until we were one and the same. My memory of otherness seemed to me the imaginings of my idle mind. It was only with the people’s appearance and their probing questions that I became aware of my having been anything other than what I was at this moment. In that moment of realization I hated them. I hated them for their pity, and the sheer purposness of their young bodies. I hated them for making me remember what it was like away from here. Most of all, I hated them because when I saw them I began to understand what freedom was. I hated them because with that knowledge I knew despair.

If Her Face is a Poem, Then Mine is...

Prose.

Introspect into Her. Make of it what you will faceless void.

She is neither nameless nor faceless. She likes those she has well enough. She’d be perfectly happy to throw them away. If there was ever a true thing about her, it is that there is never a constant truth where she is concerned. She is ever fluid, flowing to and from opposite states of being. Occasionally she can be at both points at once, a human contradiction. She wears many masks, layered and interchanged until her true face has become a mystery, even to herself. Too afraid to chip away at the façade, for what if she in her entirety is painted on. Out of her mouth drop many lies, some glitter prettily in the light, while some get murkier the longer you look, and others are as black as tar falling from her lips. From those lips wells a bubbly brook of truth and lies, merged so well not even she can separate them. She enjoys pain in many forms, her fingers lovingly search her skin for cuts and bruises, caressing each as if it were a treasured possession, her psyche is on a constant hunt for pieces of art that bring her silent tears, the words, images, and sounds jagged edges that cut at her insides. And yet, she is a hedonist, craving the pleasures life has to offer. The silken feel of high count sheets against her skin, the feel of smooth sand flowing between her fingers, the exquisite sensation, the taste of a piece of dark Belgian chocolate melting on her tongue, the euphoria that follows, the aroma of good coffee, a bath with all the works, softness, kindness, joy, laughter. She has the need to fill every moment with these extremes. She does not know moderation, nor does she want to, it fills her with fear. It is very important to fill the voids and nothingness. She is conceited and full of pride, ashamed and self loathing. She yearns for maturity and sophistication almost as much as she wants to remain a child. She is invincible, but will shatter at the lightest touch. She is bright and cheery to the utmost degree, brimming with enthusiasm and lust for life until ever she is unaware of the dark muck bubbling beneath the surface, all ugliness and whispers of discontent and her own demise. Her mind is bombarded with a myriad of images, some merely melancholy, others grotesque. In her minds eye she sometimes sees her insides, black and rotten. She is not a good person she knows. Her soul feels tattered and worn around the edges, like sheets that have been washed so many times the grime has become part of them. She gives the impression of ordered chaos when the truth is it is merely chaos. Alternately hesitant and compulsive, always at the wrong moment. There is very little she does not regret. She is happiest when the disjointed melee inside of her is kept down to a dull roar, so that she can drown it out with the sound of her own voice. Her confident smile is tremulous at best, hiding self-doubt oceans deep. Often the words ‘ghastly grin’ float to the surface of her mind. Don’t ask her to make decision, it might break her. She says she is a woman, but thinks of herself as a girl. She is nothing but a dull penny, as common as dirt. She is the truest lie you’ll ever hear.