a  red  sun  can’t  re-liven  this  staunch  grey.     dead  and  loud:   it  calls  to  your  sockets.     where  your  eyes  blink,   where  your  joints  bend.     tightened  lungs,   and  the  air  isn’t  enough  for  you  to  breathe.     you  need  smoke,   heavy  and  dirty.     teetering  upon  the  awning  of  your  own  existence.     a  part  of  you   –   breath,   hair  and  spit   –   will  drip  over  the  precipice  like  run-off,   spring  rain.     lost  to  the  thirsty  sand,   exhaling  with  the  wind.     some  days,   the  ground  is  more  alive  than  you,   some  days.     some  days.     warmer  and  firmer.     it  wouldn’t  drift  away  from  itself.     earth  doesn’t  clutch  its  shoulder  to  ensure  it’s  still  there.     that  there’s  a  steady  pulse,   even  at  the  bones’  hardest  points,   that  rocks  your  body.     i  wake;   i  hunger.     some  days.     i  hush  the  white,   desert  light,   and  answer  to  the  train’s  pull.     wind  on  my  skin   /   a  clenched,   dry  jaw.     you  almost  remember  disinterest.     but  there,   a  man’s  question,   and  again,   you  are  a  glutton  for  sun-bleached  warmth.     an  attention  that  breathes.     count  to  ten,   now,   before  you  hum.     bare  your  canines:   call  this  a  smile.     ‘   well,   if  you  don’t  want  to  catch  the  pretty  penny.   ’     the  glistening  shade  of  plum  slots  into  akami’s  hand.     their  thumb  touches  a  middle  knuckle.     a  bitten  nail  presses  into  their  meaty  palm.     again,   they  hum  like  a  wolf  awaiting  moonlight.     ‘   mighty  kind  for  a  dusty  old  fella  such  as  y’rself   ( … )   not  costly  enough  for   you   to  pawn  the  shiny,   now,   is  it?     no,   no.     wait.     don’t  tell  me.     the  lord  sent  ya  t’teach  me  restraint.   ’

who: open to anyone ! where: train station, near the general store when: harvest / 20th anniversary festival – day one

Warren thumbed his lighter open and close like a nervous dog around carrion meat.

How many times can a man stand to watch morals disintegrate until he too forgets it ever existed? The number is often higher than one might've thought but lower than some would care to admit. For Warren he had not yet forgotten it, but quite often felt as though it would've suited him better if he had. Hell, it'd beat having to watch the train arrive with smoke stacks like fumes from Satan's cigar. But then again, he never was so lucky.

The metal beast came to a smooth stop and in the minutes afterward cattle meandered straight from its iron mouth and into the rolling sun. Was it cruel of him to associate their arrival with that of meat processing? Possibly. But wasn't that exactly what it was? Man changing himself to transform? Warren shifted from one foot to another and watched with little interest as white linen dragged along the filthy ground. Dirt grabbed at the new arrival's hems and dirtied it real nice and pretty. His own attire was coated in soot likely caused by his refusal to take his eyes off the railroad.

Silently he pat himself down and swept what he could off before anyone noticed; wouldn't want anyone thinking he worked at the train station after all.

Despite two years of tenure, Warren never quite put a label on his role in Westworld outside of his official capacity (which he kept hidden from host and guest alike). In fact, he made it a priority to look as unapproachable and as invisible as humanly possible. Still, nothing ever worked the way he'd wanted it to and morals had not yet left him; so when a shiny object spilled out from the depths of an unsuspecting pocket, he was kind enough to scoop it up and present it to them as an offering.

"This here yours? You best be keeping your belongings close to your heart, lest a sticky hand pawns it off somewhere cheap."

eaten  or  rotten.     i  am  all  mouth.

basics.

given  name.     akami  sakurai. nickname.     mimi,   aki,   give  them  some. label.     the  bloodhound. age.     thirty-one. place  of  birth.     los  angeles,   california. gender  identity.     non-binary   (   they   +   she   ). orientation.     pansexual. occupation.     outlaw  at  the  campsite. moral  alignment.     neutral   /   chaotic  evil. character  inspiration.     frankenstein’s  monster   (   frankenstein   ),   power   (   chainsaw  man   ),   pearl   (   x  film  series   ),   jinx   (   arcane   ),   libby  day   (   dark  places   ),   thomasin   (   the  vvitch   ),   anakin  skywalker   /   darth  vader   (   star  wars   ),   dani  ardor   (   midsommar   ),   rebecca   (   cyberpunk:   edgerunners   ).

background.

a  mother  dreams  of  her  child,   congealed  into  the  walls  of  her  womb.     her  poorly-shelled  little  peanut.     you  are  a  soft  thing  once   ––   indented  by  fingerprints  that  can’t  be  your  own   ––   gently  swaddled  in  jelly  that  should’ve  grown  into  muscle.     soft  like  tears  leaking  through  their  eyelids.     where  her  skin  is  weakest;   where  her  fingers  cannot  press  deep  enough  to  crack  you  open  into  her  own  hands.     you  will  be  cruel,   and  seep  through  her  belly  button  under  a  blanket  of  moonlight.     ensuring  a  mother’s  body  betrays  her.     again  and  again.     she  stops  sleeping.     her  body  swells  until  she  feels  a  heartbeat  at  the  harsh  crest  of  her  belly.

in  her  unblinking  haze,   a  man  thumbs  her  bruised  eyebags.     a  man  who  birthed  none  yet  fathers  many.     a  perfect  baby,   he  says,   who  will  perfectly  live.     you  tear  into  the  world,   instead,   blood  wetting  your  tongue  like  spit.     a  birth-bed  kills  when  delivering  you.     mottled  by  lungfuls  of  cries,   and  your  mother’s  newly  barren  body.     a  neutered  woman;   her  purpose  fulfilled.     akami  will  think  this,   meanly,   as  they  christen  a  new  knife.     you  are  heavy  in  her  arms:   a  baby  skull  harder  than  her  reedy  collarbone.     and  now  she  is  the  only  blood  you  can  share.     there  will  never  be  another  of  your  kind.     you’ve  atoned,   he  says,   for  being  born.     she  will  sleep,   and  you  will  continue  to  wake.

your  mother  cradles  you  loosely,   once  your  raven  hair  can  braid.     in  her  grip,   with  your  enfleshed  body,   you  would  fall  without  your  whitened  knuckles  clutching  tightly  at  her.     to  mewl  at  your  mother’s  feet.     those  fingers  pick  knots  from  your  hair;   too  afraid  to  scruff  you  truly.     you  leave  bite-marks  on  the  meat  of  her  palm.     your  mother  has  two  hands:   one  for  the  lord  and  the  other  for  her  own  heart.     all  that  remains,   then,   is  the  father.     who  will  find  you,   as  he  always  does,   alone  at  the  riverbank.     plopping  rocks  into  the  abyss  where  you  poured  your  friend.     the  one  who  would  lie  upon  the  mossy  ground  beside  you,   smearing  mud  on  your  cheeks,   and  scaring  away  a  pair  of  torch-lit,   glowing  eyes.     pushed  to  the  bottom  of  the  riverbed,   she  will  no  longer  see  the  stars  up  in  the  black,   night  sky.

this  father’s  eyes  glint,   looking  down  upon  you.     just  like  hers.     do  you  miss  her,   he  asks.     miss  her  how,   you  reply.     his  thumb  finds  the  unbruised,   tender  spot  on  your  forehead.     do  you  miss  her?     tears  glass  your  eyes.     no,   you  reply.     he  presses  harder  for  a  moment,   before  pulling  you  close.     his  heartbeat  rests  at  your  temple.     red  pain   /   bruised  song.     and  what  is  pain,   if  not  a  held  hand?     you  clench  your  fists  tighter;   he  starts  to  rock  you.

(   our  father  who  art  in  my  arms.   )

his  brother  sees  you,   in  a  way  you  care  little  for.     with  an  axe  in  hand,   cutting  wood  from  a  sap-soaked  tree.     there,   he says,   you  blacken  the  green  language  of  earth.     the  forest  rejects  you,   like  sacred  ground  burns  a  sinner’s  skin.     oh,   how  ungodly  the  land  makes  you.     how  the  father  chooses  his  brother   ––   toothed  shears  fray  the  string  you  linked  to  both  of  your  wrists   ––   who  wouldn’t  miss  him.     who  wouldn’t  flower  his  grave,   more  than  a  week  after  his  death.     unloved  and  unloving.     born  of  the  same  ilk,   and  he  casts  you  away  all  the  same.

his  blood  paints  the  flowing  waters,   along  with  trickles  from  your  clutched  abdomen  and  scarred  brow bone.     you  allow  it  to  leak,   to  touch  his  dead  lips  somewhere  along  the  river’s  trail.     in  the  afterlife,   he  will  drink  wine  in  remembrance  of  you.     a  parting  gift  from  daughter  to  father.     he  will  not  return  to  dust,   but  to  the  empty  fish  stomachs  that  once  bore  a  hunger  called  our  own.

✦ Speak ✦

Topaz Winters, from Portrait of My Body as a Crime I'm Still Committing; “But First, the Stomach”

[Text ID: “in the beginning there was want / I can’t remember what came after that.”]

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964), dir. Sergei Parajanov

#𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐃:     dependent  multi-muse  blog  affiliated  with  westworldhqs,   as  penned  and  hated  by  katy   (   they   /   them,   gmt   ) akami  sakurai.     intro.     study.     threads.     pinterest.

Invasion 1x03 - Mitsuki Yamato