The Feast of Hers
written by: MQ
When one is no longer alive but didn’t fully corrupt, when that face is stiffened like it never had any vigor, and actions are never taken with passion or will. A heart that beats for what it knows not to beat for, the consciousness of such a one is almost nonexistent, soulless to be more exact. There’s somewhere inside that heart that wishes to become cold and hard like a mechanic, mere function, no why, no reason, because doubt is what makes them ache, asking why for mere clarity is what makes them want to freeze. But monkeys are we. Condemned in such a contrasting cage, we can’t leave. Brutally, loudly, delusional monkeys always destroy any bliss of ease. Believing in imaginary reasoning and morality. They swing the hammer of judgment to whom they can never save; they are blinds who have never seen a mirror, to ever doubt their justice.
At some point, I struggled to set away from this cage.
Until I realized I’m doomed to suffer with it, that there is no way to be free. My being is inseparably bonded to this insufferable contradiction as long as I am, my flesh and soul will be crumpling.
Therefore, I thought harshly and came up with one solution to untie or nod of myself between monkeys–
–remove my whole existence.
Though it is not until I stand one step close to death, when the cold wind is blowing on me as if it’s pushing me to jump, when my sight becomes clearer of the bottom of this height, while my mind starts to picture myself as scattered meat crumbs and splashed liquid and blood,
I have to come to admitting that I covered myself in the fear of death;
And that had me start evaluating.
I started math, can you believe, that brain that never allowed itself even to solve one equation started doing math?
Math for the value of life and death. Additionally, to provide evidence for that evaluation, my brain started to swirl itself crazy over the worth of living. Even though I couldn’t find a single reason to prove its worth, my fear has already beaten any rationality to stop this journey of gravity.
My body, as if it’s clutching at the last straw, forcing my half-numb, half-shaking leg a step back down. I took a few more steps backwards while my brain, still working hard to search for that evidence it never came to find. So I sat myself down, focused to wonder, is it… truly worthy to die?
Must I die?
For the first time, an opposing voice has risen ever since I came up with this solution of suicide, a conflicting will to not die has rooted, completely overthrown me.
But why?
Every cell of my body wanted this existence to be blasted with great devastation. Even determination can’t help me. Facing this sage of reap, I still know nothing but how to tremble. This profound void of nothingness, of emptiness, is certainly not freedom nor delightful salvation! Oh, I must not lie to my own face, because death is without a doubt an eternal torment of insensibility! I glimpse its hand reaching to muffle my sight, mutes my voice, its claws and teeth groaning to amputate my only brain and consciousness,
I will be left with nothing to feel nothing to be.
I scream.
At last, the climax of terror presents, not at the moment of death, but right before it. The closer I look, the greater the awareness of a progressively fading existence strikes me. Like thousands of needles impaling, this pain and pure panic is actually a penalty under the death’s crucifying whip.
To die, I must be prepared to lose every capability I possess, yet silly me, thought I could battle with the reaper for security. In front of this undefiable destiny, how invisible, how incapable I have been? All I wanted was for things to pause, me fading, pain disappearing. So this tiny me must belong in the ashes, I wish to sync, to unarm, put me back into peace! This fate of mine, repelling death, doomed to beat in a crowd of noise, is far from being at peace.
I’m too exhausted to strive.
Too sensitive to live.
Every time…
The bustling sounds will overfill my head like it’s about to explode, every time a touch on my skin will burn me because my soul is about to freeze, every time, EVERYTIME I, am special, to what I sense and feel is dramatically full of tension, full of pressure… spikes and cotton which come first, I never know. I am so much that I can be more than the universe! But so much that I’m so little, so the ashes are my home. Now, death is not what I can attain; there is no escape into home. But little did I know that I was already home? This unconventional planet isn’t it full of ash and rotted bones?
Why,
seek the silence within death
when the world is already deaf.
I must be too full of monkeys and me to not see that I am the world.
Although this world is as meaningless as death possesses nothing worthy. How must I generalize myself into loving to exist when nothing but death impresses me? I am therefore lost.
Finding myself standing in the middle of a graveyard, not knowing how or when I paced myself here. I am lost in my uncertainty to death, this puzzle of only the dead can answer has drawn me into this only place full of it. I lay down on the gravestone I stand upon, the coldness of lifeless rock gives me such undisturbing stillness, as if I am finally so close, so dear to death, who can put me to rest.
This tablet of life of the dead, engraved with billion days of their yesterdays, heavily and solidly carves the groaning of the sprites it sits on. I gently stroked the weeds that had roughly outgrown themselves under the weight of death stone and realized that I know nothing.
I have always followed a direction that ends up on a cliff. It turns out I might just be a chunk of sloppy liquid, fitting into shapes that shape me, I’m non-identifiable like a phantom that’s been sculptured into whatever the lore requires me to, I feel fictional like these ghosts.
Nothing to my acknowledgement has ever been true, since nothing true was ever granted.
This gap of unexpectedness has always been why there’s nothing eternal. Yet we are pushed by the intelligence and desire to run after it. This desire that destroys anything consistent makes us insubordinate; this chase of freedom forged into the chain that shapes us into what we resent. I refuse to celebrate this bitter world where we are only penalized by running in circles. I refuse to care about this ego, who has only ever punished me, who plunges me into the abyss again and again, every day I climb out of. I’ve been longing only to end this torment. I am so sick of this ego, this mind, this life, and these eyes; they altogether trap my soul into finding an eternity, an end.
But this ego cares, it cares so much that it pulls me back into the abyss so that nihilism wouldn’t eat me up completely. Filling me with punches so that I sense and see all these things that are dedicated to things called life. How I never asked for such a favor, I can’t help but care so much about myself.
In reality,
I want.
I crave truth, yet I duck it.
I want to live without fearing it so much, but there’s nothing I can do. It has me exhausted.
I therefore just pray and whine, for one thing, one thing that can make me start to adore suffering while living, like what dear death did to me. Like how it forced me into finding a good reason not to die, I ask for one thing that is pure and sincere, that can force me into finding a good reason to want to live.
One thing that’s good enough for me to no longer feel burnt by the sun, and if one thing can do so, it must be qualified to be named love.
This complexity hushes heat into my head. I couldn’t withstand this overthinking, but I couldn’t smudge it away either, so I got up, on my way to take a walk in this dark garden of death.
Midnight always gets me startled with almost every single second I stay awake, as if the moon brings my tides up to my throat, threatening me not to look in the dark night. But I stay awake so that the terror of late-night graveyards can stimulate me more than my own thoughts.
Thus, I looked, and so she entered my sight, bathing under the moonlight.
Finally, a dead has answered me?!
I thought to myself.
She turns her head toward me as she has noticed my approach, locking her gaze on me. The chilli breath lightly brought up a few strands of her dark hair as she tried to take a closer look at me with those confident eyes. I can’t help but think that this must be something supernatural. Her presence fits seamlessly in this dreadful, dim night. Making her seem quite like she belongs here under the celestials. I hardly even sensed her.
As she took her steps, she smiled at me while I stared at her eyes with caution; they stared through me as if she was trying to bring a sense of invasion, or conquer. With her undefiable gaze trying to unify what she is into me.
I have no interest in her intention, only the panic of discomfort that an intruder is trying to invade. This fine figure standing right in front of my eyes, which I know will deform, will melt. I fear so heavily, so I must back away.
So I turned my head, trying to hide the shame of fearing such a pure image. As I was about to flee, her voice suddenly rang.
“Can’t you see! Your anxiety has brought you to such ignorance that love is, in fact, desire in a delicate package. You neglect glee, you neglect possibilities. You turn away from stupidity when you can manipulate it wisely to your utility? Can’t you see life allows no defeat? We must build this pain into a castle with concrete!
When you become the only master of your own will and agony, nothing will be a barrier you can’t leap. This pile of bricks constructed with grief will only become your scaffold to obtain that power to innovate, to create! Thus, why would anything other than you matter to be considered?
Don’t be proud of lucidity that dodges you away from what could ache, such desire is the candy in that pocket you plead. Dance with me on this lava floor, because life needs celebration to reside in.”
Profoundly, she said with a voice echoing in this land of tombs, impacting every miserable soul.
“But this absurdity must be battled in solidarity. I lack the skill to put them to use under control, and I lack the bravery to endure pain every time I fail. Because I doubt every time I build! How pathetic I am toward this condemned destiny, how alone I am to even persist in this path, finding worth with such emptiness!”
I said, trembling.
I sat back down again on that cold tomb, like an inflated balloon, defeated by my negligence, while almost tearing up, I crumbled my body up, wrapping my head with my arms. Maybe it’s out of shame that I’m opening up, or maybe it’s just that yearning to be wrapped up by warmth.
The wind softly blows on me, comfortingly bringing that grassy smell up, filling my lungs as it composes a peaceful sound with just leaves clapping with each other.
She quietly sat down beside me in silence with pity, sensing my misery, so she remained silent. Waited a bit until she put her hand gently on my head. Tenderly started patting me.
She said,
“Doubt is indeed what you need, to doubt yourself and everything you see. It is an advantage, hence, it extends one beyond how one is, and you possess that richest quality. You are able to destroy what is built. The sloppiness of doubting crushes you, yet it rebuilds you.
In a world where one does not deconstruct one’s own castle with doubt, only monkeys reside in such decaying bones. This means that at least you can feel, you can perceive all perspectives of variation that the world provides in a view.”
Then she grabbed my wrist, sudden and sturdy, the warmth of her palm slowly spread on my arm, scorching, but I somewhat resisted the temptation to withdraw from her strength. As that strength starts dragging me up, I feel pulled away from security, from cold, solid ground where I can sleep. But when she looked at me, I felt dense in my nerves that she would catch me if I ever wished to leave, from that paradox, from what I can’t embrace.
“Where are we going?” I asked with uncertainty.
She didn’t reply, but just kept dragging, kept moving. We pass the broken fountain, pass the vine fence, through the forest that sings in horror, and through every stone that I wish to be. Running across the dam field, the morning dew sweeps on my rapidly moving ankle. The force of her palm was so tight, firmly grabbing onto me, as if there was something beyond this shadow that had been awaiting me. She is pulling me toward that direction so assertively, just up to the hill.
Running then becomes climbing, kicking on the mud of grass, holding myself to keep up with speed. Why? Am I doing this? I thought while panting. As my feet steadily stepped on the flat top of the hill. Sunlight shone on me, blinding my eyes heavily. I squinted my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the hilltop and realized it had come to the end of the night.
Never have I once looked at a sunrise. Never have I ever even adored daylight. It always exposes me, hurts me with those rays of heat. But her hand holding me is a tranquillizer that puts me into confrontation with this ray, I feel a bit relaxed to open my eyes, to see this warmth of heat.
Then, beauty flushed into me. Yes! Beauty! This golden hour, golden sky, is like a spell of light highlighting every piece of this forest. Trees waving like celebrating the blessing for the downfall of the moonlight, bird chirps, sings by my eardrum, along with the rhythm of the wind composing a music of delight under this touch of lume. Inconceivably, light has indeed brought life and soul to everything that has thrived. I let myself be thrown into this nature of beauty, smelling and listening, letting this view impact my conception. Fulfill me with this wonder! This is what I crave, this is love. The love I lack, the love I wish to be a part of.
Lovely unconscious life, all they do is just sleep. Why must my sanity disturb such peace! This grass, this tree, this wind, and this sun shine so perfectly, so flawlessly, like an impossible work of art. Without a single cheat, lie, or greed. Just peacefully lying still like Sleeping Beauty that no one deserves to awaken, like how we have been.
Why must we be so cursed with mobility? Changing, doubting will always be a talent that gates away the ethereality, but all this in the first place is to escape the pain of doubting, the fear of not knowing. I can’t help but see these pains as enemies. I can’t help being an empty shell so that all the filth can be dumped out. Yet no matter what I do, I only fall in the category I have circled to not be in. I then become my own enemy.
All my effort fighting against contradictions has all just been a skin, nothing but another layer, another wishful thinking. And the only core, the only thing truly left to weep is my instinct.
She glances at me and my depressing thoughts with controversy.
“Why gloom over the beauty of natural instinct when it is what’s worthy? As you can see, the world is still lively. We are granted the power to acknowledge all these myths. We are granted permission to quell our decay. This thirst of vice has us persist in the collecting of momentary glee. So accept my company and this beauty you have been presented truthfully. Since we ain’t saints, are we? This death awaits everyone, including me, has forced us into appreciating its game of existing. You, therefore, mustn’t expect any immortal peace.”
Her tone was covered in bitterness as her eyes cast down, covering a sense of condolence.
Death is waiting? I question with insecurity. Must that mean she shall leave? No, but I must not wish, I must, I must not expect any accompaniment. But must? In front of such a beautifully ironic world, how do I still negate what’s given to me? Fuck the absolutely undeniable rule of fancy. I thought.
I have finally, finally tasted something so sweet, bitter-sweet but sweet! Her care, her presence, is my feast, and this fact of truthfulness itself is proof, in which miraculously defies how an undead like me isn’t alone in this cruelty! I must cling to this, I must get more of this. No, not even more, just please stay the way it is. Let me possess such a gem, let me relish this treasury! How could I, how can I let this go? I’m not stupid like money. I will break into a maniac if I let her slip by dying!
“No, death will not condemn you; I don’t wish so,”
I said with trust in my answer as if I had finally clutched on a thread hanging in my head, finally knowing something. This I know. This I want, just this I wish to not fade.
“And I won’t let death condemn me for such a sake,”
I said, confirming more.
This honey jar of owning accompany, owning esteem has drunken me, like a swamp swallowing me deep into a trap I could never escape. I so carefully, so desperately hold on to these delicate things, knowing it will shatter eventually, but even though, even so, I commit to this sin of wanting. If desire crowns demons a name, then I must have become the biggest devil for yearning to live. I shower myself in this tragedy.
She listens quietly to my confession, then slowly, she starts to smile bigger and bigger out of satisfaction. It hurts to see that this sacrifice of mine has satisfied her intention to be. Her giggle, her laugh, her joy all seem so off, so wrong to see. Her image started to freeze, started to glitch.
I suddenly realised how cold and unrealistic her hands are that I’m holding, wha- what is this? I shook in confusion, a confusion that started a maze for my brain to start stirring, questioning. Have I truly started murdering a part of me just for some sugar to be sweet? Did I just- thought her existence is actually with sincerity? How did I become so desensitized to the fact that she’s always been a conqueror trying to invade? No, no, this can’t be.
That laugh of hers rang in my ear, louder and louder, closer and closer.
Then, a suppressing suffocation rushes and occupies my mind as I start to feel that severe pain again, all over my body, my vain, my pupils all contrast to resist such chaotic imbalance, please make it go away, please just let me rest for once peacefully, let me see this world properly, enjoy, and perceive fulfillingly without taking it away, please, I beg again and again.
Though, it shows zero mercy, it creeps like a hurricane, storms my head, possessing me as I notice the trees starts loosing its greenery, the bird chirp like a broken radio, the sun slowly becomes less and less warm and gentle, once again the shine start to burn me, it irritates me, it frightens me, corrupt me, melt me, no, please don’t kill me i scream silently.
Then suddenly– Crack.
A sound has interrupted my unease, as I thought it would relieve me, but it draws me to look at her, who is still laughing, twitching.
Yet, her- her face has suddenly started…shedding?
No, wait.
They are melting away like ice cream.
Haha.. I start laughing a bit as well, overwhelmed by such an irony as I stare at her while still panicking, sweat flowing down my back, brutally, the same fear I’ve felt from death resides on her, but anything else I’ve ever expected!?
That skin, that blood, and muscle start leaking out like she is growing out some kind of new flesh that rips her humanity off of her body.
Drip.
A drop of red drips on the fresh, wet grass, that eye-catching red aches as it paints over, covering everything that instantly has turned lifeless.
Her eyes move under her skin as if they are dying to reproduce.
Bulging.
Her skin slowly stretched and ripped open by the rapid growth.
My hands start to shake while forming a fist, heart is racing.
More and more and more, this monstrous thing! Those organs wouldn’t stop multiplying!
Her lips start cracking and exploding. And I start huffing so heavily,
Gasp.
I hold my breath.
Why– am I not running?
I looked around with my last sanity at this shattering world and realized…
Oh… right…
How did I ever deserve living without losing? This must be a punishment for my betrayal of lucidity. That I have sinned so much into illusion to the point I have forgotten, everything has never, ever been true to me! Ah, this beautiful nature surrounding me must soon start to corrupt into fragile pieces like how she is.
All these expectations of maintaining anything to be everlasting have never won a single game! How have I forgotten that I must not lose my judgement? I have been hoping so much for someone to fill my loneliness that I have lost my sight to believe that she won’t hurt me. Would you hear that? How funny that sounds. I really thought that I could live in dreams!?
“Oh, hehe… Sorry to have you see me like this.”
She suddenly said, bringing my flowy thoughts back to lane.
Her fingers wipe off the tears from laughing too much out of joy.
As she tries to stop laughing, she apologizes without realizing how ridiculous she is sounding.
This can’t be real.
I mean, it probably isn’t.
But the fact that she isn’t possessed and still sounds normal, like how she used to relieve me a bit.
But just for a bit.
Since that head of an unknown species, I stare, does give quite a phobia.
Although it has stopped transforming by So, I try to look away while still glancing at it quite often with concern.
“What you see is true. I am a monster indeed.
It’s just- I’m too happy that you’ve finally accepted me.
Your own desire, your own will to live.
I was born in your fear of death, live upon your needs.
But now, it’s no longer necessary to hide myself behind a mask of skin, since you’ve already accepted me.
How I have completed such a great task in making you live. Now you won’t be wanting to die, you will be wishing, begging to live, because once you are drowsy, you know, you will lose me.
How I myself yearn to live as well,
how much love and care I put into.
Because how I fear itself is fear of death as well.”
“You!
You think to do so, and you will have me murder my sight; you think you have tricked me into a philosophical suicide?
I tell you not.
I will never kneel to the unreal, to the unreasonable. I will keep fighting my war; you won’t take away my hatred, my disgust of this world. I now, too, crave to live the doubtful way I wish to.”
I said furiously.
She looks at me with her multiplied eyes that are barely looking humanly alike, although, seemingly, deep in those pupils, her graceful care remained; it pierced through me.
Despite her monstrous appearance, despite that, I can not observe a single expression on that flesh. I still managed to sense a cunning smile, a discerning gaze, and an obscurely bizarre beauty.
“And that’s okay,” she said slowly.
“You must keep your dubiousness, you mustn’t give in to a single faith.
To relieve one from the torture of unbelief, believing is not the only way out. Out of all the potential of this lifespan we got, it takes many forms, various elements amongst each to complete a sole universe.
So be it all, live it all!
Be that strangest monkey ever to live, feeling that most original instinctive need, and be the most doubtful of all to accumulate, to scythe your way out, finding that one path you can steadily stump on.
Because you know, that every pump of the passion, every love and surge, every moment being alive, exists for the purpose to live itself.
And I, as a creation of yours, deeply love you. Love you with my biggest desire, your own desire, for you to live on.
Every second alive, I hope for you to accept all these forms of you, including me myself. You created me out of this love of self, and to the end of this life never lived, I merely ask the dear me.
To please eat up my corrupting flesh,
consume my greatest sin with a warm embrace we’ve always been longing for till the day of death.”
I look at her with despair, realizing that this has been what she planned for, that her own death inside me has been her biggest joy. Tears slowly run down my cheeks.
This isn’t murder, I tell myself, she won’t die,
she just, she will just go back to where she came from.
So I… I won’t lose her, right?
My comforting thoughts race in my head, trying to avoid the fact that a delusion must be resolved back into a phantom. That sanity itself was never lucid, thus it would be harder than escaping hell to grasp such a mirage. While what precisely exists, are these convictions she has brought upon me.
So to speak, I must believe!
She is just going to sleep.
This isn’t murder, this is a kiss!
I walk the distance between her and me with a humble pace, while tears still flow down whenever I blink. I put on a modest face, for I to bite on her like a beast. I tear open her chest, reaching to dig out that only pulse of heart, warm, in my hand, and still beating. What a lively piece of meat. My mind has been occupied with bloodthirst, along with my blood boiling, but I contain no heat, only ice-cold sin.
She accepted her fate with no gasp, no ache. The most silent death ends with the wildest way of eating. When I noticed how beautifully I dissected her body, I couldn’t help but feel an unbalanced, disturbed harmony. In the suit of absolute madness, I slipped and completely lost it. I look at this me that I desire to obtain, to destroy, with disgust and resentment, growl and roar, I crush this peace with my corrupting spike, splash, chump, and swallow.
I ate her up into anything but with shape.
Then, until there’s nothing left,
I realized her soul did not carry the galaxy, for what I wished to see was not hers to keep;
It was me.
I open my palms of red as it blooms colour passionately.
My brain clicks and remembers how inevitably, that authenticity exists within the life I carry. This paradox I couldn’t leave, has never once stopped me. To be, to eat, has always been an instinctive choice by the hunger of every entity, but how much I see, how much weight I can bring to this balance of judgment, is all on me. I must not decide to be or not to be. I must leap in between like a restless ninny. This strength of hers is dissolving inside me, the strength to be all and never any.
Thank you for showing me,
I thought.
Thank you for being me.
Ever since, every day at night, I still feel the same painful suffocation right before I’m about to slumber. The thunder roars, lightning strikes, accelerating thoughts of mine to a halt of reminders.
I doubt and kill beliefs that I have chased during daytime, kill the me that unconsciously lives in illusory goals. This broken will that gets destroyed into fragments flutters away into beaten disappointment and retention of that, life can’t end in slumber without a funeral. Raven-like I am, crowds upon my dying soul, dissecting, analyzing every possible aspect that could even at the minimum reduce another compromise I will sign for life. After all, I am her in me.
To live it all!
My voice cries, as my rationality knows that absurdity mustn’t be avoided.
I live this universe inside me that is unable to rewind. I know I must repeatedly slaughter in astonishment so that what’s new can reside.
And through time, what’s agonizing will no longer insinuate me down in this night,
I know,
I will be fine.
Because those layers of corpses scare me not, but it does, becomes only my scaffold to regain the perks of that magnificent, untouchable dusky sky.
I henceforth dwell every night.
- The Feast of Hers - February 1, 2026
