Flesh And Cities Fall

Art by Zoe Keller

In the dark she lay coiled, comforted only by the proximity of her own body and its tangled histories. Wildness coursed through her veins, cauterising any cares she had left and stretching her hunger to breaking. After so long spent itching in her skin and burning for change, transition began without warning. Alone in the belly of the cave when no moon hung in the sky.

She felt the churning first, a pack of wolves howling deep in her belly and beginning to move through her as one. Her coils kinked and twisted sharply shaking panicked voices and uncertain figures from the walls. Her blood began to broil and temper.

In the disquiet old reels flickered through her many minds, speckled archives gathering dust and digging claws in. A ripping rolling history of old costumes and ill fitting roles, all the favours that never sat right. Thorns made the first tear on her skin and it gently split without bleeding.

She felt the light change just as the hooped contractions began, her flesh rippling gratefully in rolling waves that stripped everything from her. In the star bright sky a burning scythe shimmered and she felt its imprint take on her bones. The shedding began in earnest from the inside out. The moon threw her arms around her sun.

As flesh and cities fell and lives went on without notice, tiny cells were splitting apart. Scales and skins giving way to a gleaming architecture pulsing with life beneath. Her ears rang like belltowers as her eyes galloped forward with a seer's gaze. The eclipse grinned at her and began to draw back her soul's curtain.


Words & pic c. Kerrie Basha 2023