DIVINATIONS 
MAGAZINE

A ladle scoops me from my resting place into the spiraling Milky Way. Something sensed my suffering in rumination of things I can no longer alter–the inner pleading to be something, someone, anything other than myself. These thoughts drift away as I am immersed in a warm bath of yarrow, nightshade, and poppies.

Stupor takes hold as I am carried further into a darkness, barely distinguishable from death. Breath still draws in my sodden lungs, and I dream. In a vision, golden eyes lay upon me as I wrestle with the verity of disappearing. (34) Circe surveys my torpor, delighting in my frailty. She is predator, and I have become her musing prey.

This position is not foreign to me. Since the inception of my existence, I have been running, hunted by those who are always stronger and faster than I. Hiding from conventions and notions pressed up against me like scorching branding irons. Battle-scarred and weary, I have given into much graver things to preserve what is left of my countenance.

(34) Circe’s deft hands tip me from ladle to cup at rest on her altar. I do not fight here; I am protected from my fear and endless desire. She cannot make me more of a monster than I have made myself before, than I believe myself to be now. Where (34) Circe sees a curse, I defiantly behold a gift.

Imperceptibility.