Redemption and Salvation

Originally Posted: 10/15/08

I filed my teeth on bitter assaults, turned harmless fingernails to claws and transformed my every move into a weapon. I'm an arsenal of harmful slings and arrows, a honed wit and a serpent tongue. I can talk your pants off while I talk you off a bridge. Or I can bash your head in with my bare hands. Test not the will of unstable anger, tempt not the lust of a distanced man. Hearts are meant to be broken and mended but bodies, once smashed, are never whole again.

I'm not much for violence but I'll tear your lungs out. I'll defend what is rightfully mine. There is no peace when you seek Redemption. Only struggle, conflict, and uphill battle towards something glorious and vague. Something that shimmers gold in the sunlight and harnesses the stars. You fight through the horrors around you. The bodies that pile from failed travelers, the stench as they rot in the sun, the bullets and knives that cascade from the top. You fight and fight and to what end? Will it avail you to reach the crest of that hill, to lay eyes on the scared thing that rules it? Will you be happier having seen that naked power splayed out before you like so many fleshy lovers? To take it for your own and claim that nothing will seize it from you?

Of course it will.

Salvation is never out of reach, but I fantasize that it eludes me. It fascinates me, draws me in, touches me in ways no man or woman can and then dances out of my grasp. The epitome of cock-teases, the mother of all blue-balls. She twirls, her skirts arise and spill back down smooth, milky legs. She smiles like the sunset and she kisses like the first snowfall of a new year. She breathes in heavy, heady sighs that slither into your skin. She needs you, you can see it in her eyes. But she retreats at your every advance, hides her blushing face and turns away before you kiss. Her lips are coated in heroin. She herself a drug. Change the sex, exchange the erotic imagery for vengeance, rage, and wrath, and you have found Redemption.

She, a light-footed creature of flat plains and emerald grass, and I a barbaric thing of rocky crags and jaded skies. Conjoined we chase each other through the days and nights, across the world, across your soul. Never quite together, never quite apart. I drag a sword behind me, far too large to weild alone and she is led inexorably on by winged seraphim. We are two and one, spliced souls entwined in you. In all of you. And in ourselves.

If this sounds a little metaphysical bear with me. The road is not yet clear. I am made to tell you things, but even truths can come wrapped in riddles. You may not want to hear all that I have to say. Bear with me, just a little longer. We're sure to find our way.

Identities and crises. Who am I? Who are you? I have many, many names. You have far too few. A Goddess or a Symbol, you are both and your are neither. Human, Creature, something More? I don't have the answers. For though I chase you through eternity, we each walk on our own. Our paths, though joined, are separate. Fear not, child. I will not be far.

Find yourself and you will find me. Waiting, dressed in golden light, but not nearly as resplendent as you.

I have come to terms with sorrow. I have mastered her, mounted her, and left her with child. I shall name that daughter, once born, Joy. I am, after all, entranced by the great irony of all things. I have come to terms with loss and we have gone our separate ways. As is to be expected. I have come to terms with all those turbulent things once held in check. Not released, nor any longer held imprisoned. Let me show you what kind of being I've become. Something more powerful, more complete than merely words and little rhymes. Nothing, not music, nor art, nor stories, nor lovemaking can show you. You must open your eyes to it. Witness what you have captured.

Find yourself and you will find me. Redemption, lying naked before you, bathed and irradiated by your presence. Suffuse yourself with light, my dear Salvation. Find yourself, and I will await you.

Yours,
-Nemesis