hold me down [any]

[Pollock]

I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
I called you to wish you well, to glory in self like a new monster
And now I call you to pray

“Oooh.” It is feigned disappointment and chastisement, his lips distort into a mockery of a gentled, concerned smile. He shakes his head, clucking his tongue – tsk tsk tsk. “And who told you that?” The golden stallion bends his neck down to her level, his brutish head tilted to the side, one dark eye blinking her reflection back. “Hm?” He snorts gruffly, pulling back up high above her, his shadow stretching around her delicate little form.

“And what do you think, now that you are here?” He sniffs, imposing himself into the pliable folds of her psyche: sharp, hot dread.

He never had her boldness as a colt. Boldness like this is born from the privilege of a patient caretaker; or, from a potent sense of self – arrogance. The broken boy had neither, and so he learned to live in transparency. He learned to grow big and dangerous there. But then, she is too new to have even begun to unwrap what life has in store for her. Love and privilege are volatile elements.

He had found out for himself quickly, formed in the lair of something grisly; held there by the strength of his imprinting on her cackle, and by necessity. That he loved her once was a foolish kneejerk of his baby mind. That he had needed her, depended wholly on her, had been the hardest to reconcile.. He wonders what sweat-laden and exhausted bitch is stumbling through the carcasses of bare trees right now, wailing her name into the spring air – he wonders if she will receive a kiss of teeth for her desertion.
He would have.
Phina would have gorged on the brightness of adventure from every tip of his body.

He watches her curl in on herself with satisfaction, the defiance drains from her eyes, conceding to a more appropriate timidity. He knows this arched and tucked in form; this tongue-tied anxiety. He had been brutalized by it, until one day he fed himself full on it. What she gains from this is to be seen; whether she leaves at all is in his hands, undecided. He thinks she would not be hard to lure away.
From between her ribs, he begins to pull the fear out like a blade.

But the beauty of it, is that he controls it when he wishes – forcing in at his will, growing it and weakening it. But it does not just end mercifully when he vacates. Fear of fear itself is what makes his dark blessing so impressive. His seed grows into a mighty network of roots, it makes a home for itself. And, it may shrivel like leaves in the winter as time separates them from him, but he will forever serve as a reminder. A flash of palomino horseflesh in the corner of an eye may rattle loose those feelings of dread; the dragging sound, or two-toed prints in the mud.
A broken boy, to a lord of something never ending and consuming.

He watches her struggle with her form and his mouth twitches. In a heartbeat, he is gone, a smooth and trained transition. And in equally well-trained silence, he presses his muzzle towards her ear, “You’d better be sure, girl.”


Pollock,
The gift-giver.