Wavering Ghul

When I was visually a sixty-three year old man in a black dress shirt opened at the collar, with faded ebony khakis that ended at my scuffed camel brown shoes, capped at the cranium with a weather beaten umber stetson and pointedly steadied with an old wooden cane, others eyed me with disdain or pity for my vagrancy.  

If I sprawled on the damp grass like an animate mannequin after a storm, I was looked down upon like a soaked mutt and thrown moldy leftovers of charity. If I discarded my clothing for wudu from the rainwater, I would be disparaged as a deviant despite the sterility. So I sat and sprawled, slept and woke, with each clouded sunrise greeted by a darkening sundown, only the fiery triannual red Moon suspecting the truth. My identity remained cloistered to all other beings.

I would arise early and move quickly like a traveling wave through the grass to sit on the benches outside the local coffee shop, an imperceptible lizard. Only the passing insect suspected me, relieved by my human form, as I morphed into a less reptilian view and my darting tongue hid beneath my more human lips. I never grasped a mug in my hand and would always be clothed in the same garb except for the dark scarf that I entwined around my head in the bitter numbing cold. This keffiyeh did little to protect me from the elements, but like most fires of scorching winds, I was ablaze burning within. Thus, even if the ruddy appearance of my cheeks appeared windburned, my arteries boiled with the truth of my form.

. . .

Another cycle spins and difference dominates.

Minty breath caresses your exposed neck. That is why you don’t quiver or scream. You have been trained to fear the grotesque or even the alluring. Naively, you have no fear of the analgesic scent of purity. Ironically, you relate to what you deem olfactory innocence. I have risen from the ashes of my sin–sterile, not chaste–scrubbed with the facade of approachable. I gingerly place my manicured nails upon your shoulder but you don’t jump. You see what I want you to see; I have created myself in a new skin, one that invites pupils to stare mesmerized in allure, power in beauty, mistook for weakness, not strength.

As you accept me, I consume you with thoughts of a conquered future. Colonizing you with my charm, subconsciously my ideology invades like a grape vine, inebriating and intoxicating . I strangle you with guilt until you are poised on the precipice of conversion turning your back to your ideals and welcoming my envelopment, sober no more.

Fate is resourceful. I have waited as Fate shifted in my favor much like the feminine ocean tides bend to the gravitational Moon, swaying upon the Earth magnetized by His light in darkness. And are these not the times filling the Hourglass with ambiguity, awaiting the next invasion? The basalt sand fills and spills, darkening Time with Revelation and Rebirth, Knowledge and Sacrifice.

Faatin; to you, I have charm, as both human and mystic entities do. Ablaze with energy, I warm and burn you simultaneously. My green charcoaled eyes, like those of a feline goddess or emerald treasure, secure your trust as my hips tempt you with undulation. You turn to me, instantly lost, captivated by my siren-like tonality. I am the Sun, the Prophetess of Light but innocence is a chador clothing my being, disguising my potency in a facade of femininity.

A long delicate bronze hand adorned with pale yellow and chartreuse tipped nails now hangs dangerously like a poised serpent by my side. As you come closer, I reach for you and strike with a sense of purpose.

“Good evening, can you please direct me towards the subway?” I inquire in a melodic tone fixing my fingertips on your left shoulder.

“A goddess like you, alone, unescorted, at night in this part of Nicetown,” you inquire? You look knowledgeable with the intellect of the streets, the diction of book learning, and the enticing smile of a predator.

“Nicetown,” I repeat with a soft laugh disguising the deep timber of my full voice yet emphasizing the first syllable, “how ironic an appellation if it is so dangerous.”

You also laugh at my choice of words and flash me a smile of alabaster. Your grin alarms me while your eyes captivate. I have never been taken off guard like this. To tempt you is my purpose and, yet, I find myself drawn to your menacing stare. Without forethought, I flash my pointed canines as my tongue darts out provocatively stroking my glossy sanguine lips. Lust for omnipotence supersedes that of forbidden desire.

I hesitate to continue this conversation for fear of forgetting my mission. For how does one corrupt the already fallen? Momentarily losing my concentration, my shape quivers and blends with my longing for human connection. Will power has always been a trait of my kind. How are you, merely a frail human, infiltrating my self-restraint? 

“Have we met before?” you ask with intention as your question opens my doubt.

“Impossible,” I blurt out, responding much too quickly. Pausing, I look through you closely, and I see the amorphous black clay from which you were formed hardening in my fiery inception. Wahid, One, separated by more than 1400 years of history.

How can it be possible that temptation tempted the Tempter? And the answer floats before me. We were one separated at Creation. Like dividing cells, we share similar ideologies and purposes and we consume the haram amidst an Unholy War. There will be no victor for how does one corrupt the already fallen?

I look through you and see I have already acquiesced to your eyes, as you have to my touch; we are beyond retreat. Mitosis. Amid the impoverished and sinful, we continue to consume each other without words. Forms are superfluous. We join in a sea of indecency and the rotten waves of the discarded. And a newborn cries amidst the ashes of corruption consumed in Flames to rise as clay and wind ablaze.

#ReedsyOctober