I meet you in the garden, where all our hands meet. Hands, hands folding into and over another, fingers trespassing outer rims, whispering prints onto lips. We are the ones who still believe; you say. In every single one of my hands, I carry a different blade. For every shoulder blade I've dreamt of having, I carry another pair of wings. Your believers' eyes are murky clouds, the hue of mud. And past those trenches you let people walk on barbed wire; their nightmares turn to egg shells, their dreams to rat tails. Aren't you benevolent, aren't you kind?

I meet you in the garden; your words stink. You promise me filthy water to drink, moulded bread. Your pair of two hands, the only hands you own, hand me two loaves. My thousands of palms, the soft skin, warm, alive; unfolding at the wrist, displaying the claws I tend to hide behind my heart. My rib cage moves slowly, I don't need to breathe for you. What miracles have you worked, what spectacles have you incarcerated, what amazingly perfect moves have you lain at their feet; the blind are stuttering, attempting to see you with their drool and spittle. And my mouth feels so dry, like the drought after the storm. And I know you think I am the hurricane, the spinning whirl of voices, the spinning wheel of voices on fire.

I meet you in the garden, and you come to believe this place is the eye of the storm. I cannot approach you anywhere as your insides resemble ashes, your skin is nothing more than an empty hide. Only voiceless animals have died for your sake, the ones whose cries were never heard. I cannot approach you before the masses, nowhere where their breathing, supple flesh aches for you. I am no match for your lies, nor shall I set you on fire; the stakes are not mine to make. And my nine inch nails have caught rust.

You meet me in the garden, the only place I'd ever go to. This is the only place you'd ever find me. Have you come to tell me of your beautiful visions, your ennui of deception? Have you come to let me share your most exquisite wine, all the droplets of your own blood? Blinding lights shall strike me down, am I right? But nothing happens. Nothing moves me. And since I cannot smile at you, cannot return the favours you have offered me, I give you the only I have. In the garden, my back is against myself. I dream now, I wake now, I thread your waters of mud. From the small, dusty corners of the holes behind my heart, hundreds, thousands, millions of hands unfold. It's the sound of snakes slithering. It's the sound of my laughter. And every hand carries a different blade. And every shoulder blade carries another pair of wings. And every word you speak, I've heard before.