King of Blackjack

Swooning Romantic,

At our parting you announced with trembling lips that you loved me. I've known this for a while now, although you have never said it. The plane engines thrummed in the background as you kissed me, your eyes shut so that you couldn't see the fear in my eyes. My kiss to you was emotionless, and you pulled back with a frown and chuckled. Told me there was nothing to be afraid of, that the planes weren't monsters and that I would return back to you safely. These many weeks later I twist your words around my fingers into rings of garnet and emerald, into shackles around my wrists. Can you see how you've trapped me?

It's like the love of a family. People that you would normally despise if you were to just meet them one day on the streets, but you love them because Fate has decided with a cast of her cards that you must. You are forced to love them simply because they are family.

You never wanted to love me and I never wanted you to love me.

It wasn't a sudden revelation like the sun parting clouds, beauty indescribable. No. Instead it was the friction of a match against a rough surface, grating into flame. Discovering your love for me was like suicide. A painful joy.

Lying here in this bed in this motel, beneath these crisply starched sheets, my stomach roiling as I read over notes we wrote a year ago. Endearments that set our hearts aflutter. So quickly we moved from enemies to friends to lovers to loves; the House Elves never had a chance. First the door of the broom closet was broken, and then one of the Common Room tables and then Weasley's smirking lips. Your friends were bewildered by the change of things, as were mine. They placed bets on when it would be us who were broken.

They asked us why we did it, how we could let it happen. The pain in their eyes was almost too much for you, but you didn't let that stop you. I never answered them. I never knew the answer.

To be honest I was, and am still, bewildered why we let this happen.

I can see your frown as you read these words. The light from a lamp, or maybe a candle, glinting off of your glasses. You will deny what I write.

Convince yourself that it isn't true. Go ahead.

But it is true.

Heart Breaker

*****

Caesar - King of Kings,

I had the urge to send you a postcard that read "Wish you were here" in sloppy letters over a horrid picture of a national monument; perhaps the Parthenon. Can't you just imagine a Polaroid of me, knobby knees peeking out of a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that says "I'm with stupid!" I would make sure the arrow pointed at myself and at every bloody muggle that asked me to hold their camera for them.

I would have sent such things that people mail to associates and co-workers when they are forced. A thumb to the nose: "Look where I am! Haha! Don't you just wish you were here with me?" But I didn't, and sent you only a letter, therefore proving that I do care about you, in my own convoluted way.

I sit on a crumbling riser, a glass of wine at my side, and a loaf of bread. Did you know that once men died here fighting starved animals? The powerful men who thought they could rule the world would fill their stadiums with water and stage battles with ships, blessing the winners with coins and roses before caging them for another yet another war. The dead got nothing.

Think of that power. These men loved each other so well, their philosophers reading for hours from their scrolls, the listeners concentrating so heavily their brows grew creases. Who listens now?

Can you see the beauty in a world where men killed mercilessly and yet adored art to the extent that they would disfigure small boys to keep their soprano voices? I believe they were called eunuchs. (Or perhaps Creevy's?)

Sometimes I dream that I emerged from my father's forehead, bursting out like a fledgling chick. I was nothing but a pawn to him, a mirror image, the same but opposite. What a shock to him when I had a mind of my own. He thought he had the same power as those long ago kings. He thought with a motion of his hand I would go stumbling into the ranks. That, at his bidding, I would suck out life - leaving in my wake an ocean of dead.

I used to think that, like Zeus, my father transformed into the form of a white ox and seduced my mother into loving him. I realize now that there was no mask over her eyes. She was just as much a part of it all as he was. My own mother, like a needle inserted into an apple, just below the skin, its poison injected slowly so as not to leave a trace on the outside. Her beauty eclipsed only by her evil.

And her love for all things shiny.

No wonder I love you. You are the only one who doesn't hide behind a mask. You are the only person I know who is truth incarnate.

Sincerely,

Son of Zeus, Prince of poison apples.

*****

Pilgrim,

I dream about you at night, did you know? I wake up in the morning, a bird sitting on the rail of my small balcony, singing sweetly to the first rays of the sun as the hundred-year-old whitewash peels away. My sheets are twisted into knots, trapping my ankles and tying my knees together. The pillow is on the floor, but when I pick it up, I know I didn't throw it all that long ago; it is soaked in sweat and tears and it doesn't hold your scent, only mine. The smell of stale cigarettes and spilled rum. And sex, don't forget that.

I remember. One night, after I had poured an entire bottle of tequila down your throat you confessed your sins to me. You fell to your knees and prayed to me as if I was the Virgin. Panting, you drew me to the floor and played me like a piano, a gypsy guitar, until I was sobbing. I screamed your forgiveness into a pillow that I held against my mouth, knowing that the neighbors were intently listening through the paper thin walls. And I'm sure that at that moment the gods agreed with me, you were absolved of all previous evil.

Bless you, my child.

Today I went into a cathedral that reached to the sky. Outside, the ground was so dry it cracked, dust coating my eyes and nose. Inside the door was a bowl of water, possibly Holy Water. I used it to clean my face. Sacrilegious possibly, but when am I not?

The light that had been blinding outside, bleaching everything to a uniform white, filtered through the dusted stained glass windows. Row after row of bench seats marched me to the front of the huge room, so silent that my footsteps echoed as in a cave. I saw an arch painted black with white stars, a statue of a woman clothed in blue reigning benignly from within. She held a small baby, her foot peeking out of the folds of her gown like a delicate flower. As she gazed at the child her face was radiant, the peace enough to make you trust that everything would be fine. I imagine that is how your mother once looked at you; the statue had the face of a woman who would die to save her child. Without your mother I might never have met you; I want you to know I lit a candle and prayed for her.

I would ask you, "How does it feel, to have a mother who loved you," but you wouldn't be able to answer. You had parents that loved you dearly, and you never knew them. I knew my parents and they never loved me.

I honestly don't know who had the worst of it.

The End,

A priest with no flock to tend

*****

My Skeleton,

Do you eat? When I left, your wrists protruded like the handle on a teacup. I was afraid I would break you. I had to leave; your fragility scared me. I tiptoed when you slept and cursed the loud noises that reached into the flat from the street below, sure that that one would be the one to wake you.

If you were here, I would rub cherry ice cream along your lips until you couldn't resist it any longer. I would hide your cigarettes, and when the craving came over you, I would present you with hot baklava slathered with honey and frothy chocolate in a mug. We would end our nights, every night, with smores roasted over an open burner coil and champagne from the bottle.

Today, I look at pyramids built in rainforests and deserts. If a person doesn't mind the sun they can climb to the very top where, in a small room, stands an altar. Once upon a time, to appease the gods, men would offer their hearts believing they would make the rains come and the enemy disappear. A man in feathers and jewels would use a dagger made of gleaming obsidian to pierce the chest and pull out the still beating heart. During more violent times blood would run down the stairs in floods, staining everything crimson.

The sun here is so bright that every trace of that love and fear is gone, and now all that is left are rows of vendors at the foot of the stairs. They stare at me blankly and offer cheap trinkets, aluminum and glass replicas of charms their ancestors revered. You would think that the blood of thousands of people wouldn't be so easy to erase, but it is. But you already knew that didn't you? No one bothers to remember the blood on our hands. A slap on the wrist and we're on our merry way, our image waving out of every bookstore and toy aisle. Screaming children begging harried mothers for us.

Us, can you even imagine?

If we had lived here, I would have prayed to the jaguar. Swift and silent, deadly and beautiful. I would have gladly bared my heart to such as him and let my blood flow down stairs of bone. And you, I imagine your god would have been of rain. Sweet, life giving, and yet too much will wash everything away.

The stairs of these temples remind me of your spine. Your pale skin stretched across bones so tightly, a thin layer concealing the muscle and life. I used to lie there while you slept and count your ribs, slide my hand across the hollow of your stomach when you laid on your back, swirl my finger in your belly button, tug the black hairs that lightly lined from it to under your shorts.

You are getting much to thin, soon you will disappear like the souls of these rainbow golden skinned people.

Eat,

God of Jaguars.

*****

Apathetic One,

I wonder if you even read these letters I so diligently write to you. Do you tear them up? Do you hold one corner above a candle flame until the entire thing is consumed? Hold a séance for the pieces when you come to regret it in the morning? Or, knowing you, they are unread and still in their envelopes, carefully filed away in the mahogany chest we bought as a housewarming gift to ourselves.

I didn't have a good day today. The children here are as dark as night, their stomachs stick out as if they are pregnant although they are only three. They don't bother to blink when a fly crawls across their eye.

I have never seen true poverty, and this is too much for me. I gave away all of the money in my pockets; and would have given away my whole Gringott's vault if there had been a way to get at it. They cried. Generosity isn't taken for granted here. A little girl gave me a butterfly she had made from coat hanger and pantyhose. The girl put her heart into it, and what could I do but take it?

Have I ever told you I hate you, with your green eyes and transparent skin?

Before I met you, before your touch, these children wouldn't have mattered. You've made me see that the darkness in this world isn't carved in stone. That it isn't something merely to be endured until our time comes, then to be endured yet again in the next life. That it can be changed. But how can it be changed when a city's government will throw its trash into a small fishing village, forcing the people to live in the trash, salvaging their lives by picking through it for their food? Either that, or move to the city and be forced to live in a foreign land and pick through the trash there. I agree with them, I would rather live in the trash at my own home, even though the garbage is someone else's fault.

At least they can say they're home.

Did you know that there are people who scavenge through these great dumps for partially used items? They turn around and sell them right back to the very people that threw them out. A hundred pounds of torn cardboard is worth a Knut.

A small boy found an unopened box of spaghetti. They will have a feast today.

Donate everything,

Someone who will not eat

*****

Boy Hero,

You saved the world. Everyone loves you.

Save me.

*****

Lady Luck,

Amazing how a city sprouted in the middle of a desert. Driving down the street, you are bombarded by lights and sounds and you should see the girls. With no shame they bare their legs and breasts.

You can get married in this town in twenty-four hour chapels, and divorced the next night. Apparently many people have done that very thing. Although I avoid the muggle news like a plague, I heard that someone famous did that very thing. I saw her picture and was surprised that she was rich and not one of the girls I could see down the alley. From the face of the man that she was with, she must have been very..... talented.

I seem to have a skill at playing games of risk. The balls rotating in their wheels of numbers obey my command, and I know what the cards will say before they are flipped. Carefully I lie occasionally so as to not look like I am cheating. I win back everything I lost back in the pile of trash and spend it on foolish things.

At first I felt guilty coming here, knowing how you would hate it. You hated anything that played on human weaknesses. Gambling is filthy in your mind, one of the deadly sins. Needless to say I love every moment of it. My dark to your light. Or is it your dark to my dark?

A woman draped herself across me, her luscious rear planted into my lap, her red hair in my mouth. Another, this one with black hair and green eyes wrapped her arms around my shoulders and blew on my dice for luck. The only thing lacking was a pair of glasses and a scar. They cooed over my accent and asked if I was from Australia.

I took them to my hotel with me, and I must admit I performed quite well. They laughed when I cried out your name. Apparently you're a lucky guy.

I woke up this morning with their legs entangled in each other. Like cats they slept in the center of the bed arms outstretched to either side, taking up every last inch of room. The one with black hair snored in a quaint feminine way. I sketched them on a napkin and enclosed it with this letter; I hope you like it. I want you to appreciate the enchantment that I can see here. The magic of neon and nylon.

"Wish you were here!"

King of Blackjack

*****

Harold, Harry, My love,

I've discovered that I miss you. I wonder how long you've known this and kept this little secret from me? You are truly evil. Keeping such things to yourself. Hark! The Herald Angels sing, for you are the next Voldemort.

By moving around I thought to distract myself from my memories. I sought to forget the acid flash as Voldy finally died, to forget the curve of your lips.

The wind whipped a breeze through my hair as I looked up at a tarnished woman who was standing on a small island. I seem to have such girls in my company quite often, don't you think? She was holding a book in the crook of her arm; she who was once the color of copper. Her other arm rises straight up into the air, holding a torch plated in gold. She is the symbol of this country's freedom, never mind the prejudice and filth that abounds below her.

Everything about this world is so beautiful, the muggles so two-dimensional in their appreciation of what they have accomplished. Their holidays of freedom just another excuse for debauchery. Not like that is different from any other day, but I didn't speak my mind, for fear of pain inflicted upon my delicate self.

I want to come back to you and your candles and late night kisses to whispered words of 'I love you,' while I bite back sarcastic remarks. I'll bring with me a feathered headdress, a foam hand emblazoned with the number one, a butterfly made by a round-bellied child out of discarded hanger wire and pantyhose. The history of this world in my arms. A final understanding of what you tried to die for. What I did die for.

I never understood why you brought me back. The shocks of electricity to my chest. And now.....

I'm sorry that it took others' pain and triumphs to make me realize that my own insecurities were nothing but the crying of a spoiled child. I thought to myself, there are more fish in the sea.

I lied. You are the only fish in the sea. Everything else is plankton.

Sharks.

Coral.

I can hear the plane engines in the background.