Steven universe fanfiction, part 2

The sea breathed in and out, and Steven matched his breath with each breaking wave. The morning was wet and cool, so the later the day would get very hot and muggy, but already, beads of sweat stood out on Steven’s forehead.

“Empty your mind,” Pearl’s advice still echoed in his ears. “try to think about nothing, become nothing and become one with everything.” Empty your mind, Steven told himself.

Don’t think about how the gems always leave you behind on the warp pad.

Don’t think about why Garnet’s first thought is to protect you and not to let you help.

Don’t think about Amethyst teasing you for not being as strong as her.

Definitely don’t think about what Pearl’s advice even means.

“I can’t do this!” Steven stood up kicked the sand. The ocean licked at his toes. The sun rose, slowly, and painted the horizon with the light pink of dawn. Steven looked down at the Quartz of crystal growing from his belly button. For a moment he thought he saw it glow, but when he turned his waist he saw it was just the sun glinting off one of the gem’s many facets. He had to look away. The sunlight dazzled him and black dots burned his vision, but instead of twinkling out as he blinked, they all drifted into the center, like they were all falling together.

A black sword emerged from the middle. The only way Steven could see it against the black from the spot it emerged from was the way the sun glinted off it just as it had off his gem.

The sword sliced down and the air made a noise like curtains being ruffled.

Through the hole now flapping in the breeze coming in off the ocean stepped a young man who looked to be Lars’s age but pale as Pearl, though dressed all in black, from the graceful sash about his waist to the brutally sharp collars on the shirt he wore. When he turned his head to look at Steven it made the sound knives make when they’re being sharpened. Jutting out from the sides of his head, the same color as his jet-black hair were two horns, curving backwards in a slick, straight pont. At the base of his throat, where the cords of his neck came together with his collarbones, a shard of obsidian thrust out.

Steven fell backward, terrified. The young man’s eyes pierced through him and a grin cut across his face. Steven half expected his teeth to be black shark’s teeth, but he was too scared to think and too scared to be surprised they were just white shark’s teeth. The young man just laughed.

“Oh, it’s Rose’s kid.”

Another voice, both very close and very far away, echoed out from the hole in the air.

“Steven! Steven’s there?”

A huge white form bowled the young man over and the hole in the air closed up with a whisper and a rustle behind him. Steven flinched, holding his arm out in front of him. His belly was really hot and his shield flickered into place with the sound of a fluorescent lamp buzzing on. The pale titan grabbed the first young man’s arm and yanked him off the ground as if he were an empty soda bottle. Taller than Garnet, he gleamed blond and pale, his short platinum hair almost disappearing into his skin. On the backs of baseball-glove hands were white crystals growing out of his knuckles. He let out a guffaw twice as large as he was.

“Little Steven! But not so little anymore, are you? And already using your gem! Rose would be proud of you, eh?” He extended a jewel-encrusted paw. “But hey, you remember Uncle Quartz, yeah? Here, get back on your feet.” Steven reached out and grabbed two fingers of the massive hand. When he looked down again he was already on his feet. “How rude of me. This is Obsidian. Obsidian, you remember Steven? You were five when you met him last.”

With a flourish, Obsidian pointed the sword’s point at the jewel in his neck. But before he could sheathe it the door to the house banged open and the Crystal Gems hurtled across the sand at them.

Quartz turned and waved. Garnet stomped to a halt. Obsidian jumped and the sword clicked back into his neck. Amethyst tumbled head over heels and Pearl landed precisely, toes pointed and spear raised. Steven scurried over to Garnet’s powerful legs and her massive gauntlets disappeared with a thwoomp. “Quartz. How did you get here?”

“Obsidian has been training. He can use his sword to get us around, like a warp pad. But it’s only one way.”

Obsidian rubbed his throat. “And it’s taxing” he croaked.

“Why here?” Garnet was unflutterd.

Quartz rubbed the back of his head. “We were doing a patrol, and ran across a millibeetle that split up into a swarm of gem beetles when you hit it. Almost got licked. Lotsa mess to clean up. Obsidian’s exhausted from running and fighting, and I thought it would be great to see you.” He knelt, and with a glance Obsidian knelt too. in unison they chanted “We Gem Knights kneel to you, Crystal Warriors, and pledge to aid your will.”

Pearl blushed blue, flattered by the appeal to tradition. Garnet was, as always, unflutterable. Amethyst just snorted, laughing. “Just come let ‘em hang out. You guys like food?”

“I like food,” Obsidian admitted. “I love food!” Quartz guffawed. “I like food too,” Steven mumbled up to Garnet. Her massive hair blocked out the sun when she looked down to regard him through her inscrutable  glasses.

“I could eat.” She announced.

Silence

Silence
grown grand and gravid is awesome.
Awful. Full of awe.
Dripping with it.
                           Heavy.
Humming with long
drawn-out thoughts--
have you ever heard the earth
sing in quarter time? It
drowns out all other sound
with sighs.
                  Hush.

My head rested on my daddy's chest--
I still called him daddy, then--
on the days when we'd stay home
and he'd stay in bed.
I counted the hairs on his arms
watched his belly rise and fall
listened to his breath.
Listened to the empty song.
Learned to wrestle with the gift he gave me.
The heavy sound.
                             Silence.

A self-portrait in watercolor, 2014

I saved in a vial all the tears from exes
gasping, begging me to stay, from my father
the last words I said to him twisting like a knife,
and from my own crocodile self pity.

I mixed in rich pigments of hazel,
whiskey brown and crushed ice blue
and with a brush of hair gathered up from around my apartment,
cleaned out of the shower and the couch cushions and the pillows on the empty bed
and a handle made of cruel stoic heart-of-oak

I made the perfect reflection of my heart.
It’s a masterpiece.
A fully realized vision.

The dreamer

I was waiting for him outside the theatre,
under the marquee that hadn’t changed in thirty-two years;
I watched him walk home,
his shadow playing boko-maru with my footsteps.

This Falstaff, this Hamlet,
his whole world masks and makeup down to the bare skull,
stopped and stared at the reflection of the moon
in a puddle.

I pitied the man just as
I pitied the ones who went back and sat
in the cave and watched the shadows play on the walls,
the names we had given them as children, forgotten.

Bark your shins and stub your toes and bite your tongue

I hissed at the corner of the coffee table
that had  jumped out at me
from the darkness of my midnight-lit room
and bit my shin.

for the burning moments while the pain ran up my leg
I had a chance to pause and breathe deep
the night-sounds of cicadas
for the furniture in my room to tell me to slow down
and dance awhile

but hatred is a sweeter fruit
sweet as blood from the tip of my tongue
dribbling over my chin as I spit out curses
chewing on seeds like hot coals
damning the darkness as if it had an ear to listen.

Le petite mort

I’ll swallow you whole
I’ll start with your toes
I’ll engulf your heart and you’ll die
“I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,”
I’ll whisper, cold lips on cold thighs.

Burnt Buildings

TO MCCLUNG, BURNING
sometimes you feed the flame

I walked through you, once
when you were being erected.
I slid my fingers over the the new
corners, the nooks and crannies,
the walls inside your walls,
all your plumbing exposed.
I watched as they dressed you
and breathed life into dirt.
I remember you before you were tall.

But you were filled with a desire
for the lick of flame, the tongue of fire
pulling up your skirts
you showed everyone your girders

And I’m feeling sick because
I trudged, half-drunk
through knee-deep snow
to see you
and I see you
I see you slumped over in the night
and I see your ribs poking through your back
and I see your brick skin hiked up like a sundress
and a wink in your broken windows
that glitter with a smirk
and a crooked finger

I can’t tell
if it’s your last time
to beckon me in
or because last time was the last time

I was the only one to come inside.