(no subject)
boneyard born:
1/we're not our skin of grime
Tom Riddle Sr/Merope Gaunt; R (violence, incest, death)
A/N: diverges wildly from HBP 'canon.'
Flowers shouldn't grow here. Everything else seems to: thick bramble weeds out of control in the rocky earth. How long, how long, how long do these skin petals have to tremble, in a garden tended with blood? But god, she thinks, I spent every day of my life shivering and so it doesn't matter if I die out here in the cold.
How's it supposed to grow with no light, anyway? Merope thinks of the closed space where she was born. Even if the dirty open boards and stones of the house, crooked, sinking further into the maw of muddy earth, could have given some life, the cannibalistic trees would have taken it. This was the house of words where everything was dirty, everything was rotten, and there was only fear and blood taste in her mouth and daughter fearing father, sister being good to Morfin and fragile, grown stunted and twisted, starving for light.
And they're all fools, because they thought she didn't know there's a world beyond the crooked stones, a world beyond the hanged-man trees: a world full of radiant light and brilliant colours where people grew tall and straight, untrembling, unafraid of what the next sun or the next dark would bring them. They thought she would be too weak to cut her feet to ribbons on the sharp rocks to find it, too weak to understand that a woman is the only link in a chain that can break it.
She trembles and can't speak, when her father's fingers are around her throat, fists leaving purple-blue marks on her stomach and legs. She doesn't make a sound when Morfin's hand slides over her thin breast and wasted ribs in the dark. But when she's alone, breathing in the filthy air, all alone, she knows that she's smarter than them, that she understands something their sharp twisted little minds can't know. She understands that she can't have that world of light and colour. She understands that she can't have that man whose skin looks like the petals of a rose, whose eyes shine forever with the light that he grew bathed in, until they dazzle her: she knows her own eyes are dull and dead and full of darkness, and that her kiss would taste of ashes and despair. She knows no man will ever love her.
They did not understand.
A man cannot know a house, he simply inhabits it. He exists in it. A woman is the house's existence. A woman cleans and sweeps the house, she opens its windows and shutters, she cooks in its kitchens, lights its fires. A woman knows the heart of a house, she can know its flavor. The flavor of the house, Merope knew, was rot and ruin and madness, twisting everyone inside it. She never blamed her father for his cruelty, her brother for his selfishness, his stupid and broken self-love. They had no choice. They grew without straight lines, they grew without light.
Squib, yes, she understood from the earliest moment that all she had to offer this family she loved were her hands to work and her womb to give life to a better heir. Sometimes when she cried at night in the early years, one of the snakes would come and slither over her body, inside her worn cotton dress, the scales like the most perfect caress, the words they spoke soothing. Merope knew she had nothing to offer but life.
But what would the future be, if every generation were further twisted and decayed by the twisted and decayed house? If her son were the result of Morfin's big cock inside her, and the child was as ugly and stupid and selfish as Morfin? Twisted so he could hardly speak a human language, hardly think and hardly move like a man? So she watched Riddle, the beautiful one, dreamed of his hands moving over her. Dreamed of his child growing inside her. A child who would be tall and beautiful, his eyes filled with light and darkness, utterly unafraid.
A woman is the only link in the chain that can break it.
Merope knew hardship and giving of herself. God, she knew not eating when there wasn't enough food for the three of them, and she knew pain and nausea, and not saying a word, just lying still. Should flowers really be nourished by tears and blood, boneyard born? No. No.
One night she slipped out of the sleeping house, which seemed like a dead thing breathing carnal fumes, and she was a dead thing walking. Finally the cannibal trees gave way to soft cool grass and rose bushes. These she nourished with the blood of her cut feet. She walked until she fell to her knees before the great house. The sun was rising, and the first bits of silver light transformed it all into a world which covered her skin with a beauty and life she could not possess.
She got up, when she could stand, and walked down into the village. There she sold the few things she possessed that were of value, save the locket, and she ate and washed herself and got herself a new dress. She felt the same, and yet, less contagious. Less likely to spread her dirt across Riddle's beauty, more able to take his light into herself, a shining seed.
She waited until he went riding all alone, then she stepped out of the trees and fell with a sigh, letting all her unbound hair fall around her so he could not see her plain face. He stopped.
"Sir," Merope said, "I am nothing and no one. I am not beautiful, nor rich, nor wise. But I am a woman, and I wish to give my body to you. I have never known love, and I wish for you to show it to me, here in the woods."
Her voice was clear. It seemed for the first time in her life her tongue would not falter.
He made love to her. He said he liked her hair, dappled in the light. He lifted her skirt, and it was not like sex at all, but something wonderful and transcendent. He did not kiss her, but he entered her as a god enters his temple, and Merope felt the seed quicken, and felt herself for once full of light as well as dark, life as well as death.
Once, when it was almost over, she wanted him to stay with her, wanted him to take her to wife, but she was not a fool. She did not belong to that world, she did not belong to him. She belonged to the house and to the blood, and to the locket around her neck. More, she belonged to the child who would grow in her belly, the future of the chain.
She went as far as her legs would carry her. Exhausted and cold. But she had spent all her life shivering, and she had spent all her life in pain. If only-- if only she might have had more time. She would never have sold the locket for a few days of heated rooms that were not enough. She would have to hope the clean and light of that place where they cared for children was enough. It was not cramped and crooked, but it was not full of light and colour. It was not what she had hoped, but she was weak after all, and she felt her strength leaving her...
There was pain. Men were pain. But as she held him in her arms she saw the petal skin, the eyes full of radiant light, calm and unafraid, the body that was perfect. She named him after both ancestries, but mostly for Riddle, so that they could never carry him out of the light, never twist him in that dead place.
They carried him away and she slept.
She awoke to blows and bruises, and she thought those intervening days, almost a year, had been a dream. Of course she could never leave the house, it was her reality. Marvolo was her reality, this pain and rage.
But then he asked, "Where is the child, you slut?"
She knew then it was all real, and she was afraid. He didn't understand: his mind was small and bent, as he was, and he would bend the child. Her flower would never have all it needed to grow. She said nothing, even as he drew his wand. Even as he tortured her until the world was black.
And she knew we're not the dirt we live in, we're not the twist in our leg or the bruises on our skin. We're phosphorescent, and she never understood enough to realize she could be free, that she could be strong.
One final whisper: "I love you, Father. I love you, Tom."
Prompt:
We're not our skin of grime.
--Allen Ginsberg
1/we're not our skin of grime
Tom Riddle Sr/Merope Gaunt; R (violence, incest, death)
A/N: diverges wildly from HBP 'canon.'
Flowers shouldn't grow here. Everything else seems to: thick bramble weeds out of control in the rocky earth. How long, how long, how long do these skin petals have to tremble, in a garden tended with blood? But god, she thinks, I spent every day of my life shivering and so it doesn't matter if I die out here in the cold.
How's it supposed to grow with no light, anyway? Merope thinks of the closed space where she was born. Even if the dirty open boards and stones of the house, crooked, sinking further into the maw of muddy earth, could have given some life, the cannibalistic trees would have taken it. This was the house of words where everything was dirty, everything was rotten, and there was only fear and blood taste in her mouth and daughter fearing father, sister being good to Morfin and fragile, grown stunted and twisted, starving for light.
And they're all fools, because they thought she didn't know there's a world beyond the crooked stones, a world beyond the hanged-man trees: a world full of radiant light and brilliant colours where people grew tall and straight, untrembling, unafraid of what the next sun or the next dark would bring them. They thought she would be too weak to cut her feet to ribbons on the sharp rocks to find it, too weak to understand that a woman is the only link in a chain that can break it.
She trembles and can't speak, when her father's fingers are around her throat, fists leaving purple-blue marks on her stomach and legs. She doesn't make a sound when Morfin's hand slides over her thin breast and wasted ribs in the dark. But when she's alone, breathing in the filthy air, all alone, she knows that she's smarter than them, that she understands something their sharp twisted little minds can't know. She understands that she can't have that world of light and colour. She understands that she can't have that man whose skin looks like the petals of a rose, whose eyes shine forever with the light that he grew bathed in, until they dazzle her: she knows her own eyes are dull and dead and full of darkness, and that her kiss would taste of ashes and despair. She knows no man will ever love her.
They did not understand.
A man cannot know a house, he simply inhabits it. He exists in it. A woman is the house's existence. A woman cleans and sweeps the house, she opens its windows and shutters, she cooks in its kitchens, lights its fires. A woman knows the heart of a house, she can know its flavor. The flavor of the house, Merope knew, was rot and ruin and madness, twisting everyone inside it. She never blamed her father for his cruelty, her brother for his selfishness, his stupid and broken self-love. They had no choice. They grew without straight lines, they grew without light.
Squib, yes, she understood from the earliest moment that all she had to offer this family she loved were her hands to work and her womb to give life to a better heir. Sometimes when she cried at night in the early years, one of the snakes would come and slither over her body, inside her worn cotton dress, the scales like the most perfect caress, the words they spoke soothing. Merope knew she had nothing to offer but life.
But what would the future be, if every generation were further twisted and decayed by the twisted and decayed house? If her son were the result of Morfin's big cock inside her, and the child was as ugly and stupid and selfish as Morfin? Twisted so he could hardly speak a human language, hardly think and hardly move like a man? So she watched Riddle, the beautiful one, dreamed of his hands moving over her. Dreamed of his child growing inside her. A child who would be tall and beautiful, his eyes filled with light and darkness, utterly unafraid.
A woman is the only link in the chain that can break it.
Merope knew hardship and giving of herself. God, she knew not eating when there wasn't enough food for the three of them, and she knew pain and nausea, and not saying a word, just lying still. Should flowers really be nourished by tears and blood, boneyard born? No. No.
One night she slipped out of the sleeping house, which seemed like a dead thing breathing carnal fumes, and she was a dead thing walking. Finally the cannibal trees gave way to soft cool grass and rose bushes. These she nourished with the blood of her cut feet. She walked until she fell to her knees before the great house. The sun was rising, and the first bits of silver light transformed it all into a world which covered her skin with a beauty and life she could not possess.
She got up, when she could stand, and walked down into the village. There she sold the few things she possessed that were of value, save the locket, and she ate and washed herself and got herself a new dress. She felt the same, and yet, less contagious. Less likely to spread her dirt across Riddle's beauty, more able to take his light into herself, a shining seed.
She waited until he went riding all alone, then she stepped out of the trees and fell with a sigh, letting all her unbound hair fall around her so he could not see her plain face. He stopped.
"Sir," Merope said, "I am nothing and no one. I am not beautiful, nor rich, nor wise. But I am a woman, and I wish to give my body to you. I have never known love, and I wish for you to show it to me, here in the woods."
Her voice was clear. It seemed for the first time in her life her tongue would not falter.
He made love to her. He said he liked her hair, dappled in the light. He lifted her skirt, and it was not like sex at all, but something wonderful and transcendent. He did not kiss her, but he entered her as a god enters his temple, and Merope felt the seed quicken, and felt herself for once full of light as well as dark, life as well as death.
Once, when it was almost over, she wanted him to stay with her, wanted him to take her to wife, but she was not a fool. She did not belong to that world, she did not belong to him. She belonged to the house and to the blood, and to the locket around her neck. More, she belonged to the child who would grow in her belly, the future of the chain.
She went as far as her legs would carry her. Exhausted and cold. But she had spent all her life shivering, and she had spent all her life in pain. If only-- if only she might have had more time. She would never have sold the locket for a few days of heated rooms that were not enough. She would have to hope the clean and light of that place where they cared for children was enough. It was not cramped and crooked, but it was not full of light and colour. It was not what she had hoped, but she was weak after all, and she felt her strength leaving her...
There was pain. Men were pain. But as she held him in her arms she saw the petal skin, the eyes full of radiant light, calm and unafraid, the body that was perfect. She named him after both ancestries, but mostly for Riddle, so that they could never carry him out of the light, never twist him in that dead place.
They carried him away and she slept.
She awoke to blows and bruises, and she thought those intervening days, almost a year, had been a dream. Of course she could never leave the house, it was her reality. Marvolo was her reality, this pain and rage.
But then he asked, "Where is the child, you slut?"
She knew then it was all real, and she was afraid. He didn't understand: his mind was small and bent, as he was, and he would bend the child. Her flower would never have all it needed to grow. She said nothing, even as he drew his wand. Even as he tortured her until the world was black.
And she knew we're not the dirt we live in, we're not the twist in our leg or the bruises on our skin. We're phosphorescent, and she never understood enough to realize she could be free, that she could be strong.
One final whisper: "I love you, Father. I love you, Tom."
Prompt:
We're not our skin of grime.
--Allen Ginsberg