a guide: shadow puppetry

i'll tell you, honey:
            how to be a super villain  in five easy steps. this is not like an empty mailbox,
     this is tangible and real. one, you have to believe you are all-powerful, and
         you do it like this ― you clench your fists until your nails bite into your skin like gripping a vine covered in thorns but you're doing this to yourself. if you have
       the power to harm yourself you have the power to harm other people.

step two, you have to take those bloody palms and lay them all over the boy with the
             autumn eyes and the thews of summer gold, stain his whiteness with red
   and bite at his mouth until the edges of his teeth are flooded with the
                     same                  exact                                            color.
       everyone bleeds the same color, darling. when he begs you to stop, don't.
if you feel like stopping, don't. gnaw him to nothing.

step three, peel off pieces of his gorgeous skin and paste them to your own face;
                  feel what it's like to be beautiful and ugly and beautiful and ugly. if he's
       still alive, ask him if he believes in god because if he does,
    he      b e l i e v e s   in              y o u.

step four, don't laugh. don't ever, ever laugh, but ask if he will because he always did
                       have a beautiful, contagious laugh, didn't he? don't tell him you once
       loved him. it will destroy you, it will destroy you.

step five.
        kill him and then whisper that you love him
    into his half-open mouth and whisper that his
eyes are beautiful in his cold ear and then bury
                          him with these secrets.
                                                                                     it's all yours, sweetheart.