Draft

I was born.
I was crudey expelled, ridiculous and naked.
A vile, demanding alien. I was offered no dignity.
Not so much as a name.
A sprawling and grotesque burden adopted by oligation and mortal instinct.
Protecting.
Nurturing.
Defending.
I was born without scars -As desperate as I was pure.
My hand was empty then.
My conscience was empty too.
Primal and weak.
My only weapon a greedy, viscuous mouth.

I grew up a plain and thoughtful child, seemingly lacking in compassion.
Ah, if only that was so.
If only I did not weep at night for an inconceivable loss.
For the destruction of something I never could put my finger on.
The long, lost and forgotten purpose of this life.
And during the day I would take beauty from that which they disregarded.
The world was motivated by a greed, a control and an oppression.
The high powers relied on the ignorance of the workers and glorified superficiality as an aspiration.
It disheartened me. That blindness.

They named me Mariasha and I embraced it and its meaning. It suited me more than anything ever did then.

I grew to be a thin and sickly looking child my skin as white as it was cold to the touch. Aside from the eyes I looked only average. I knew this but my heart viciously defied anyone believed me less than beautiful. I had a pride that could not allow them to judge me. They knew nothing, they led meaningless lives. They could not comprehend true beauty nor see what lay inside me. Beautiful I was, by definition.

My eyes were fierce even from birth. A couple of amber pits that calculated everything, darting like wild lizard tongues. If the humans had dared look closer I believe they would have seen my soul but no one ever did. Nobody took the time, spared themselves a moment of their tiring existence to look deeper inside me. Instead they buzzed around me preoccupied with work, money, and food. That bland cycle of life that I have always despised.

I was weird and set myself apart from their ignorance, from the mundane existence of those that surrounded me.
A dreamer.
I would sit for hours by the placid and simple stream, imagining, feeling with the greatest empathy, where those waters had been. Where they would go. Absorbing the hopes and hells that they cleansed and carried.
The timeless existence of water makes me dizzy, even now.
I looked with awe at that which they took for granted. They would laugh at me and I would withdraw. I knew I was destined for something, something superior to them. They mean nothing, they are nothing.

When I was six I ran away. The meadows tempted me. Seduced me from the stupidity of my own home. Each luscious blade beckoned me from its earthy root. Hypnotised me with its perfection.
"How can they deny me this?" Muttered by crumb stained lips.
For I thought I'd die back home. Like they did all the time. Rigid and alone and stupid. Without purpose. Grieved, forgotten, replaced.

I put no thought into my escape and my memory is weighted with mortality but there's no forgetting the moon.
Magnificent and billowing, plump and whole. She watched me, she protected me.
I could feel no fear, not even then. Nature was my true guardian.
And in her luminous and lunatic static she guided me on my quest.
Her light a brilliant white, scarred with the battles of her infinite past.
Her understated glamour clawed and danced with the tides.
The moon guided me.
The moon was my first love.
My first epiphany.

I was taken home almost an hour later. Squirming, howling, frustrated and red faced. Face sodden with bitter realisation; I couldn't escape them, not yet. I was deeper but I was not yet stronger. No laws, no person that I had yet met could understand. The world was a cruel and shallow place. And it angered me. Every day I saw examples of the arrogance of humankind and it struck me bluntly in my chest and made me laugh a little. The irony was too much for it to be humourless. Create, destroy. Stupidity, obedience, reward.

I was thirteen when I moved to the city. I was sorry to have to turn my back to the country. The people were nasty, spoilt and simple and they had hardened me. Their purpose was to build my character, to make me realise that I was not one of them and I never did want to be. As opposed to them hurting me as their stupid taunts intended, they made me smile as I remembered them with a sickly pleasure. Those stupid children, those sacrificial sheep.

Sometimes now I wonder what happened to them. I think maybe they did anger me a little. Not so much by their insults but by such void of compassion. If I was like them I'd have been broken. I wanted to save any child that was caught in their malicious path. The child that would go home and weep lonely and bitter tears of self pity. The child that had to hide their discontent from their smothering family. The child that turned to self destruction, to wild ideas and strange dreams. The child with no hope of fulfilment. It can kill you know. A daily beating of self confidence. It leads to tragedy, wherein lies a beauty. A beauty they wouldn't understand.

I intended to start at the beginning. The birth was not the beginning. In my busy mind there is no beginning nor an end. There are cycles. Millions of cycles creating balance and harmony. Each of those cycles means as much as the other. It's a dizzying conception and it pains me to realise this but my existence is only another of those cycles. I am only equal to those I have given myself authority over. Equal, equal. No more, no less, no better, no worse. I was born, I lived, I died and I was born. My power lies in my realisation of this.

Let me take you back to a time of utopia. A time of harmony. A time when the cycles co existed without interruption. Without primal greed. I was Mariasha then too. And just as proud as I am now.

Sweet and warm grains dusted the floors, kissing our feet as we went about our lives.
The aroma of cinnamon was always dancing, strong and vibrant in the breezes that blew gently and cooled our paths.
The sun heated a glorious path of red sands and tepid azure waters. It was a paradise. Animals and humans co existed peacefully and there was nothing to complain of. Purposes were fulfilled happily and respect was not reserved for those of which we were afraid of or used. I had a family then.

My mother, Asta, beautiful she was. Plump berry stained lips and a magnificent face which boasted an olive glow, the shapely glow of the moon. Voluptuous and hardened, she beamed with wisdom and cared for us children with the patience of a Shepard. We needed not fear when she was around and us children believed her to be invincible. A white witch, a magic woman. But she always reminded us, without any regret that like our father she too would one day die.

My brothers and sisters spoke of my father with wild eyes and hushed murmurs, as if he was somehow still here. Ever powerful, a deity. I was the youngest child and the only one not to have had met him, so I swallowed the fables of his life with the gullible awe now reserved for only Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny. And the billions of followers. Daddy was a warrior, daddy was a King, daddy was the Messiah. Daddy was my father. That's all I knew for sure.

A distorted painting hung brash and shameless above the mantel
It had terrified me since as long as i'd dared to open my eyes
For years I did not know who this man was
The man whos amber coals followed me, ever knowing across the room.
I hated to be left alone with the painting, it was mystical, haunting, real and crude.
When I did ask my mother, who this man was, that followed me and judged me without word she dipped her head sadly and told me to sit down and she slid up next to me on the persian rug, an intimacy reserved for sombre ocassion.
"Mariasha" She began and I looked up at her in my wide eyed innocence.
"Should you not know that man is your father? Should you not recognise the eyes that bare into you are but a reflection of your own"
I hung my head down, afraid to look at the painting, afraid that she was right. The demon of my childhood was my father.