Entry 4
There's something wearing my Father's face. It could be my father. It stares out through drink-dulled eyes, screws up his too worn brow, twists his mouth into snarls and scowls and growls and hate *just so*. It could be my father. I don't know what I'm wearing, but I think it's me. Is it me that-was? But is this nothing more than me-that-was, how can I, me, be here? Because if this is me-that-was and I am me-that-was now, how can I be me-that-is? I cannot be both me-that-was and me-that-is. I am me-that-is, only *have been* me-that-was. That has to be how it is, doesn't it? Was me-that-was, is me-that-is, will be me-that-will. You walk forward, not back. No-no-no-no-no-no, you do not walk, you do not half to walk, you cannot work, you are pushed from behind by great weight, that brooks no barrier and spares none at all, only pushes fast or slow, snails and hares and mayflies.
I am a snails born of snails, snails such as the thing wearing my Father's face. I am wearing something young and small thin and frightened, all skinned knees and lowered eyes and bruises and ragged clothes, no more woman than man. It is me-that-was, me-that-is, and my father (if it is my father) has grabbed the skin of one of the arms I am wearing in his grip, and it cannot be my father, for it's grip is stronger than his ever was, somehow even crueler.
It starts with the face I am forced in, and it knows my father well. Drink and sorrow rotted away the skin of the woman he ensared, and my sister took after *him* (who is my father, not this, who wears his face.) In me, in me-that-was, in me-that-is? He sees *her*, but not just her, her-and-me, she who he, my father, not the thing that wears my father's face, broke like a cheap pot, and the one who reminds him, my father, not the thing who wears my father's face, who is twisting my arm, kicking at my shins, beating into my face, of she whom he, my father, not the thing who wears my father's face, ruined and decayed like a poisoned wound.
But it is not me? Not-me who it, who wears my father's face, is hurting, because this is... Is it not me. I want it to be not-me, but it hurts, and if by brusing the face and breaking the collarbones of not-me it hurts me... How can not-me *not* be me? It is *not* me, it is not-me, but I am it, not-me and me taking a punch to the gut, something below the hip and above the knees giving way, and we finally cry out in pain and helplessness, and now we cannot stop, and we need to stop, because he, no-no-no-no-no, if I am not-me and me, and me-that-was and me-that-is, *that* is not my father, it is a thing wearing my father's face, but it hates it when we cry.
And it hurts us still. It hurts us, in any way it wants to us, it the worst ways it knows, anything that it wants and wills and wishes and whims, and we do not understand whats-and-whys, just how and the feel, the pain and sweat and blood and the tear-salt. He-it, father-not-father, broke our arm, and it hurts less than he-it meant it, because now we match, right to left and scar to scar, and then we smile-smirk, wolf-howl.
Wolf-Howl? We've never been a wolf, never been a- *We have a weapon.* Not me-that-was, still not-me and me, me-that-is and not-me-that-is. We have a weapon, jagged and ragged and red-white-red, and we open his-its arm. He-it make us match us, we make he-it match us now, and he-it is crying-screaming, on the floor, knees hard against splintering floors, and we know that cannot do, we cannot leave him now. Out we flash, one-two one-two, And he has no knees, and we wolf-howl, and we know why. He-it is prey and we are wolves, who fear not and kill and eat who they may, but we do not want to eat, taller than we have ever been, red-white-red plunging down and
down again until he-she-
He-She? Always it, sometimes he, never she. Where did it-go, why did it come? We cannot know, and we are wolves, and we kill who we may, and we plunge down again.
Blake woke me here. I had been smashing my left forearm into her, hard enough to bruise beneath her ribs, bruises she would be wearing still if not for her magics.