Alexandria

I suppose I have always known him.

He is etched on my hands like indigo dye, the bright stained-glass blue of his iris embedded in my skin. I cannot look at my fingers without thinking of how his interlock with mine. It is a strange thing to know your flesh is haunted. When I look in the mirror, I see him, grinning arcanely back at me.

I know that in the womb, he molded me to his will - I am as much his creation as God's, perhaps more so than the Lord lays claim to me. Like my old china doll, he crafted me, with pale skin and copper hair. He says I am delicate as a robin's egg, with eyes like silver coins to pay the ferryman across the Styx.

My fate is inscribed on my palm in indecipherable lines. Only he can read them. What he utters ices the marrow of my bones: “I have written my memories into you.” He read stories from my hands in my youth, would tell me tales of a Paradise long lost. Whether that place is now dust or a graveyard, I do not know. Still, he longs to return to Gan Eden