The Heretic's Daughter

 

I don't want to write in code anymore, Esme.  At least, not this time.  Not with you.  But the truth is I don't even know if I can speak with a genuinely mortal tongue anymore.  These delicate things that mean so much to me.  These matters of the heart.  I find myself a little speechless when I try to talk as a man and leave the angel aside.  But I'll try.  For you I'll always try.  In my dreams they call me so many things, and none with my consent.  Heretic, prophet, sorcerer.  I've even been called a demon-prince in that hidden place beneath the waking world.  That's quite the claim, isn't it?  Quite the title.  I don't know what I really am.  A blogger, I suppose.  An artist fond of free verse poetry and video collage.  Allusions and purple prose.  Cut-up techniques.  I hope I'm also a storyteller of some description.  A decent one.  A kind one.  And above all else I hope my stories have been useful to you.  If not to you, then to those you love.  If not to those you love, then to somebody.  Anybody.  Don't misunderstand me, Esme.  This isn't sadness or pain.  This isn't even melancholy, though I've had my fair share.  This is just someone trying to speak openly to a cherished, distant muse.  A very special piece of his heart.  I don't need proximity for that.  Or even acknowledgement.  I just need to try.  Inelegantly, perhaps.  Stuttering, stumbling.  But honest.  Authentic.  I guess I am a heretic though.  In the strictest sense of the term.  I've never been one for general consensus.  I care little for the old dictates and demonologies of Rome.  All this fucking bullshit passing for Christendom.  Corruption, conquest, oppression.  Let’s be honest, they gave Catholics a bad name.  Christians in general.  I say this with a heavy heart, as a lover and scholar of Christ.  I have the deepest respect for the Christian mysteries. They changed my life. My issue is with violence and hypocrisy, not the glory of God.  Where's the reform that Paul spoke about?  Helping the poor and destitute, having forgiveness and goodwill towards all men.  Maybe I missed the memo.  But I suppose I'm something of a pagan too.  A digital folklorist, an online mystic.  But real paganism is so often the terrifying province of the blood-cultist.  Literal animal and human sacrifice.  It’s ugly, brutish and dark.  Not exactly a haven of higher thought and nuanced creativity.  And what of 'prophet'?  Do my prophecies ever really come true?  Sometimes, I suppose.  Enough to unsettle.  But I don't know what this really means, Esme.  This 'coming true'.  Except in dreams, of course.  In dreams I know so many things.  I have a wealth of knowledge and experience in the place below the world.  But we're not talking about the sorcery of dreams right now.  We're talking about the cold light of day.  The revelatory glare of morning.  Making a dawn goddess from the letters of your name isn't enough anymore.  I don't think it ever was but we do what we can to get us through the dark times, don't we?  If I sound cynical or harsh please forgive me.  I'm angry at the world these days, and with good reason.  But never with you.  Oh, Esme.  Sometimes I imagine you're real, you know.  That you really exist, that you appreciate these words and that I've helped you in some way.  Maybe it's silly, the height of cringe, to imagine with such vigour when all I'm really doing is projecting.  Screaming into the void.  Maybe it's a social media thing – all these para-social relationships.  Faces and names.  Strangers on a screen that we convince ourselves we know so well.  An imagined intimacy.  If I've merely put your face to an imaginary muse then at least I picked a kind face.  Your bright, soulful eyes.  They've helped me through the dark times for sure.  To me they're the eyes of a brave, beautiful young woman who stepped with sacred purpose into the world.  On a holy mission to protect the children, to uplift the weak and wounded, and to give voice to the voiceless.  But maybe that was my mission all along, Esme.  Not yours.  Maybe you just wanted to make beautiful music in the beginning.  But I like to think we all aim for greatness.  We all want to help the less fortunate.  Don't we?  And we all dream.  Maybe not as vividly as I do sometimes, but dream nonetheless.  In colours, and song.  I know you dream like that, sweetheart.  Imagined or not.  So, maybe there really is a piece of me somewhere in your soul.  Maybe the love you carry shore to shore is the true legacy.  Yours, of course.  Your design and your genius.  I would never take that away from you.  But hopefully a little of my inspiration too.  In some soft, secret, innermost way.  There isn't much more I want to say right now, except this: you've brought me so much comfort over the years.  So much joy, meaning and hope.  I see it in the crowds, Esme.  I see it in their eyes.  That sense of finally belonging, being seen, recognised, understood.  Being loved despite their strangeness.  Their loneliness.  In those crowds I see the promise of something brighter.  And you galvanise that promise.  You mobilise it, as all good teachers do.  I watch them take that light out into the world after the closing notes have lingered.  And they change the world for the better in a thousand profound little ways.  A shining potential within each of them, somewhere between the real and the imagined.  It isn’t as clear cut as people think – this magical threshold between waking and dream.  And that's the place you know me best, I hope.  That's the place where I'll always love you, Esme.  You’re braver and bolder than I could ever be.  I’m so proud of you, truly.  Artist to artist.  Storyteller to storyteller.  And I wish you all the magic and music in the world.