Carissa Pallander
On Desire (skinny dipping in a lake of fire)
A Lyric Essay
I will forget all this once I exit the shower, every small thing that I wish for as I stand under its purifying and steady stream. But here, water falls like rain droplets over my skin during a summer storm. The heat of it burns against my flesh as if the sun is still out, reddening my otherwise pale complexion. The faucet’s waterfall spills into my mouth, flowing against my lips as they mouth something in the shape of desire. It is terrible, pathetic, depraved labor— to be in a constant state of hunger under the volcanic heat washing over me. When I finish this litany of longing, I am ashamed of it all. I still confuse desire with sin. Echoes of childhood teachings reverberate through my mind and I would do anything to quiet them, to absolve myself of the guilt that courses through me. My fingers find the knob that controls the temperature and turn it all the way to hot, despite the fact that the walls are already sweating and steam is pouring through the cracks between the bathroom door and its frame. I don’t flinch as the fiery sensation intensifies. I surrender my naked figure to the numbing burn. Nothing else exists but me and the heat and my drowning sins. It washes away the grime that has accumulated in the crevices of my soul. If I burn my skin raw maybe that will be enough for God to not punish me himself by sending me to hell once I am dead. This is less than what I deserve but a far gentler fate.
I do eventually exit the shower. And pull on a nightgown to cover my nakedness, slick with sweat and steam still clinging to me. The fabric chafes against my raw skin, still warm to the touch. I don’t feel real. I am gone to the world, a forgotten conglomeration of flesh and desire, sandwiched between soft cotton sheets in the shadows of my room. Each night’s sleep begins like this, of course. But tonight, stuck in the purgatory between consciousness and sleep, whispers of some depraved dream flit through my mind until I am all but encompassed in complete darkness. I am unsure whether the pitch dark comes from behind my eyes or the setting for this mindscape of unconsciousness. I descend further into unawareness. Until there is light, fragile and delicate, out of focus and out of reach. The antithesis of illumination which people who have died and lived to tell the tale describe. There is no angelic glow outpouring from the heavens or a rhythmic ballad of string instruments and ethereal trumpeting. Instead, there is this– a single small speck in the distance surrounded by boundless night, resembling a world before God created light with nothing except His holy Word. I bound toward the minuscule glimmer in the only way that dreams allow, a sluggish sort of sprint. It is a useless pursuit. The shadows close in. The light disappears into the distance as if it were only a mirage in the desert. I am a panting mess when it happens.
He appears between me and the place where the small light has now faded. A phantom from a dream that I buried beneath my waking childhood memories. In that dream, I had hated him. Only eight, I fought tooth and nail with talons I grew in the night that tore through his red flesh. He had looked cartoonish then, a result of ridiculous descriptors spoon-fed to me by the Catholic Church. Deep red skin and long pointed nails and a slithery tail and the classic spiraling horns protruding from his skull to top it all off. He looked nothing like himself then. Nothing like he does now. Now, he wears the face of a first love I haven’t had yet but have dreamt of countless times. The embodiment of all my desires. When he looks at me, I feel it. Desire is rarely something that I have something imposed upon me. His gaze warms my skin. It feels as though I am seeing him for the very first time, the being behind a monstrous reputation. I am wiser to naive caricatures of blind hatred and fearmongering. Before me is the fallen angel, not some calculating master of torture. He is no more evil than the God who allows him to punish souls who were only ever trying their best. As a fallen angel, this is his eternal punishment too.
The corners of his mouth upturn. It is not a devilish smirk, but a genuine smile that splits his face like a cleaver. The minimal illumination emanating from seemingly nowhere draws shadows across the hard lines of his brow and jaw. The only light that exists here is created with invisible fire, burning and constantly in movement. It reflects across the darkness the way sunlight refracts through the surface of water and ripples on the bottom of a pool. Hell is a candlelit landscape. Every observance feels so much more damning in the dark, the way it casts sharp shadows and masks imperfections. I refuse the notion that light and darkness are enemy forces or a measure of morality. Humans have attached these meanings of good and evil to the arbitrary conditions of light and darkness. They are simply opposites that attract and repel and inform different perspectives. It is plain to see that darkness suits him in a way I am sure it would not suit God. They are opposites that attract but have been forced into repulsion.
I have neglected my dream visitor for too long now. He is the perfect image of sin, synonymous with this thing, desire– what I would do if morality were omitted from the equation. If this place that I am in were nonexistent. After all, that is why we commit sin is it not? Because it is desirable. Something about it entices us. He approaches me without hesitation. I have an inclination to ask him a multitude of questions. Why he turned from God, why he chose darkness. Although I cannot see myself, I am starting to wonder if the setting suits me too. I want to ask him if he remembers me from the dream where I stabbed him in the back. I want to ask him if he forgives me for it too. If he has, he would be kinder than God who never pardoned him for the very same treason.
He eyes me without shame. I do not squirm. You are so very human. It is not an insult. He speaks with a tongue split like a snake’s. I have a dangerous affection for people who can see right through me. And he can. Through my skin and bones down to my very soul. But he does not possess the ability to judge me. That is a god’s task, and he is no god. Judgment free, I am comfortable under his stare. I cannot tell if he wants something from me or if I am to remain statuesque for him to analyze my figure. He has only ever spent immortality studying the suffering of my kind. I cannot fault him for that. We are what God makes us. This is a new endeavor for him, to come face to face with a human soul that does not require torturing. And as a result, I am not fearful. His circling footsteps do not make my skin crawl with the sensation of a wild animal’s corpse being stalked by a vulture. I am only reminded of the statue of Venus crouched on the floor of the British Museum. I wouldn’t dare compare myself to the goddess but the infatuation she commands– the way that every eye in the room catches on her, including those of the other statues that are so strategically placed to perpetually face her marble frame. My skin warms again as I imagine hers must. Not a blush of embarrassment, but prickling goosebumps that come with the knowledge you’re being watched— a companion to the gaze women inflict upon themselves even when we are alone. The weight of being truly seen.
Come, his eyes abandon my body as his circling paces are replaced with footsteps that lead away from me. I follow him through the candlelit pitch black. Everything appears as if in a motion picture, hologramic and startling. An undead night illuminated by invisible firelight staggering over shadowy surfaces, as if strobe lights in a nightclub accompanied by the familiar warmth of body heat. Sweat sticks to me in the most delicate places. The nape of my neck, the curve of my spine, the divot between my thigh and calf on either leg. The collecting perspiration resembles the first light of day. Each of these hard lines and curves that make up my figure mimic blades of grass gathering dew drops in the midmorning summer sun. Like them, I am comfortable in the warmth of this dying night.
In my periphery, he pauses on the bank of a faintly glowing river. It is easy to imagine we are old friends about to cast stones across the fiery surface. The weak shine it omits mirrors the speck of light from the first vision that overtook my descent into sleep. So I had not seen the unattainable radiance of heaven then. It was this, his infamous lake of fire. The current is sluggish, thick with eternality. The sight does not startle me. My baptisms in the shower have made me no stranger to scalding streams. Besides, earthly bodies of water pose a much greater threat. They have the ability to kill. Death doesn’t exist in this hellscape of liminal immortality. Even if it did, I have spent my life in its drowning properties. From birth to baptism to bath to beach. I’ve gotten off on swimming as if it were equivalent to cheating death. I’ve let my state of being hang in the balance as I wondered what it would feel like to inhale and welcome suffocation.
Now, I stand beside this being on the sideline of his blazing brook and have the innate urge to submerge myself. He is patient but looks at me expectantly. I have nothing left to lose. If the proclivity to satiate this desire is already sin enough, I will be damned either way. I don’t even allow myself another split second to ruminate over the impulsive indulgence. My body acts on its own accord, plunging headfirst into the heat and light until I no longer exist. My skin burns away along with my fingernails and hair and muscles and bones. I am not in agony when I break through the surface of the flowing inferno. Only my soul remains, finally unburdened from its carnality. He is there next to me, watching me. With my flesh eroded by heat into nothingness, we become equally infinite beings. How similar these are— heat and desire. Both are ecstatic sensations that burn us. There is a relief that comes with burning, an indescribable pain that eventually gives way to tranquility. We exist within its aftermath. Laugher does not echo through the limitless night but I can feel it escape the throat I no longer have. I look at him and I understand it all. There are no questions to ask. Then he says something neither of us has ever heard from the mouth of God, I forgive you.
When I wake in the morning, I am in desperate need of a shower.
