What is it like to lose a voice?

A lot of people wondered when they heard I had been gaslit for three years.

Well, it's both simple and complex, like an equation not everyone can solve. It was like death, yet it felt alive. Gaslit people go to work, have fun, work out, meet family and friends.

But to do so, they must do without a voice box. They might use an AI program to speak for them. Or they could use their abusers, who know how to talk to them well. In that case they speak but not their minds, they laugh but not at the jokes ty find funny, they attend parties and gatherings, they buy clothes, cut their hair, shave their legs, but they are still not them, even eating their favorite ice-cream bowl or lying lazily by the sea.

Sounds complex? Well...let me tell you a story about a prince who was everything everybody wanted him to be, but not himself when he agreed to lose his voice.

Part V

"It was as if the piano held the secret to his artistic reverence, the thing that destroyed everything in his life, except his true feelings. How he felt while playing was something he found hard to explain to anybody. Yes he liked food, talking to people, laughing, and riding the merry-go-round. Yes he liked kissing and touching people he found attractive. Yes he loved climbing mountains. But playing the piano, it was like all the keys on a puzzle piece clicked. It was like this game where you have to place all the wiring in the right place and you finally get it, panting happily like a dog. The piano was his refuge from a world that didn't really get him, although he wasn't that challenging. But the piano kept its secrets. And his secret was that he hated having to be somebody else to survive. Otherwise, he'd be shunned by the world, shut off from all experiences and daily interactions.

But the piano wasn't abandoned. Someone was there. A little girl. She sat tentatively at the piano, rolling around on the round chair. Every time she faced the piano she'd hit a note. Yes, most of them were off-key but she laughed as she did it. And he laughed with her. The prince did something he hadn't done in months. He released his face from the cloth shield mask, untied the finger straps of the cloak sleeve, and tore away the cloak. Although it felt scaling, like he peeled away some skin with it, he was energized. The sun beams came through the cracks in the trees and the leaves looked more vibrant. He had a short moment of being alive and present, and he cherished it. He had forgotten how normal interaction with people was, but he was ready to try. Unlike his true nature, he acted casually and bravely, approaching the girl, offering to teach her. The girl replied shyly that she didn't have any pennies to offer him. He was relieved that she didn't know who he was, but he smiled and said he didn't want her money. She just had to come here every other day to practice.

That day, the prince regained some of his old tricks. His notes were solid and poetic, his melodies structured, and his improvisations pointed and non-confusing. The girl showed promising talent and he said he would be here the other day if she was. The prince rode his horse home that day - after carefully enclosing himself in the cloak - and something had changed in him. He was well-versed in his powers. He was Spartan and cautious. But he was different, similar but different, more like himself than he had ever been. Dare he say he was better than in his days before the contract? When he was wildly lashing at the piano, without any understanding of who he was, and why he was the only one in the kingdom who wanted to do this?

That night he slept peacefully. And woke up with a heavy heart. As he walked to the main square of the kingdom he found out why. There she was, the girl. The little girl he had just taught to play the piano. She was hung from the gallows, her hands tied behind her back, and her face blue, her eyes bulging and swollen. All the prince's restrained anger unleashed, his faux reserve failed. He climbed the gallows, untied the noose the girl hung from and grabbed her. The poor townspeople gathered around him as he held her corpse and screamed chaotically. He sounded gibberish and muffled, as if he had forgotten how to talk. He demanded to know the reason why the girl was executed. It took 10 of his father's men to disentangle him from her and drag him back to the castle.

In the castle, the prince discovered that for the first time in months he had taken off his cloak. He had forgotten to put it back on this time as he left his room. The king, his brothers, and the ministers, the nobles, and the clergy were all disappointed in him, disgusted with his behavior. Outside, the streets roared with rebels. The whole town raged against the king and the royal court. They demanded justice for the murdered little girl. The king yelled in the prince's face that he had brought shame and disgrace to the family. A commoner is a commoner and this girl was involved in a secret ploy to assassinate him: the prince himself. She was used as a pawn to lure in the prince, the easiest target of them all. "The only fool in this family."

Words hit the prince's chest like daggers. He slumped on the ground, blurring all the figures, muting all the sounds. Except when the king told him that the sorcerer was the one who uncovered the plot. And if it weren't for him, the prince would be dead the next time he went to play his damned piano. Rebels and anti-monarchy anarchists would be waiting for him, and they would take their time with him, and when he has reached the ultimate levels of pain, they would kill him in vengeance to upset his father. The prince bent on himself, growling in pain, his face a mess of tears and a trickle of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth after his brush with the guards. He was drenched in remorse. He disappointed his father. He disappointed his brothers. His act of mindless bravado resulted in a bloodbath. But more importantly, he let down the sorcerer. And to his horror he discovered that the sorcerer was the one he cared about the most, feared the most, and whose opinion - in his eyes - mattered the most. He loved and feared the sorcerer but more importantly he respected him more than he respected himself. The sorcerer was flawless, unlike the prince, and all those months of hard work culminated in nothing. A blank space of non-existence. The prince had to be wrapped and buried in a coffin. And his room could be his graveyard of passion."

What is it like to lose a voice?

A lot of people wondered when they heard I had been gaslit for three years.

Well, it's both simple and complex, like an equation not everyone can solve. It was like death, yet it felt alive. Gaslit people go to work, have fun, work out, meet family and friends.

But to do so, they must do without a voice box. They might use an AI program to speak for them. Or they could use their abusers, who know how to talk to them well. In that case they speak but not their minds, they laugh but not at the jokes ty find funny, they attend parties and gatherings, they buy clothes, cut their hair, shave their legs, but they are still not them, even eating their favorite ice-cream bowl or lying lazily by the sea.

Sounds complex? Well...let me tell you a story about a prince who was everything everybody wanted him to be, but not himself when he agreed to lose his voice.

Part IV

"The prince became hollow. The cloak was all there was to him. It was this and his successes in the kingdom. As much as possible, he tried to retain some of his former self. He dug a dam for an impoverished village. He bought a horse for an old farmer who placed a printed ad on the Kingdom Broadcast Noteboard to plead for money since his old horse died and he couldn't feed his wife or pay the apothecary fees. But all his efforts ended in vain. His heart wasn’t in anything he did.

It wasn't about excelling or succeeding at the noblemen's royal court. It wasn't about golf or crucial conversations at banquets. It wasn't about mulling wine or walking with an enormous cavalcade behind him. It wasn't the cloak that floated behind his back like a regal creature that added to his false mystery. It was about food tasting like ashes even as he thrived in sword fights with cousins and brothers alike. It was about his being both visible and invisible, blank and occupied, starved and stuffed to the bone, drowning and knee-deep in shallow waters. The prince evaded his gastronomic and erotic pleasures, he could woe any girl he wanted, he could get the world to kneel at his feet, all thanks to the sorcerer's tactful plan of hiding in plain sight, but he couldn't do anything.

He could still hear the piano inside him sometimes, like an old demon from an abandoned well. Every time he heard it, something maddening stirred inside him, and drove him to drown his sorrows in opium that he took tiny drops of late at night. The drink would burn his insides and fill him with raw bitterness, but elate him to a degree of nirvana unlike anything he has experienced, followed by a nimble feeling of sedating calmness. Like someone had filled his mouth with cotton, removed his intestines and wrapped him in linen. He was mummified in the opioid cocoon until the next morning. However, he made sure never to drink it in front of the sorcerer, or else he'd face another fit of rage from him, the least thing he wanted.

The sorcerer would know, though. The prince was surprised at how close he and the sorcerer got. Too close that it made him uncomfortable at times. And the scary thing was that there was no one to talk to about it. No one would believe him, or even sympathize with him, so what if the sorcerer and he were inseparable? What was the problem with that? The problem was that he felt the sorcerer under his skin, sometimes hearing his thoughts more than his own. Actually most times. Like that time he tried to kiss one of the nobles. The boy was wonderful looking, and he was giggling shyly as the prince entered a party, strong and tall in his cloak and his face cloth shield. The young noble's shyness gave the prince fake swagger and he walked up to the boy. This made the boy curl inwards even further. He dragged the boy into the corner and revealed his face. After months of hiding, people gasped when they finally saw how firm and angular his face was, his eyes solemn, his gaze infernal. There was a brutality to him that the cloak allowed him, while his insides usually turned into porridge. But as he stepped closer, held the boy's chin in his hand, started to kiss him, he could hear the sorcerer's scolding as he told him that he should not be involved in this complex relationship at the time. His hand fell to his side, and he walked away, shameful as ever. He realized that he really felt shameful because he could imagine the sorcerer's reaction when he told him the story, not because of how humiliating the situation made him feel.

That brought him to the big question. Why did he have to tell the sorcerer? It was beyond him, like he was bound to a rock by the sea. The tide pulled him inward, but his chains were stronger than the lure. Despite his desire to keep a piece of his life to himself, his tongue took over, submitting his every truth to the sorcerer. He recounted every detail of his day before dinner, from the biggest to the smallest intricate thought. The sorcerer would always listen patiently, even if the prince absentmindedly recounted an old tale, or mourned something he had experienced in the past. However, the sorcerer never showed boredom or unrest. He always had something to say, and of course, it inevitably ended up being the prince's fault. Even thoughts could be wrong, a whisper, a whimper, a remark said in the wrong place, a shift of the knees, or a slump of the shoulder. The sorcerer was strict about the prince's body language and followed the rules. Damn did he obey them! He followed the rules until there was no bone left in him to rebel.

It wasn't until that day, when the prince found himself visiting the piano's old hiding place. He didn't know why he did what he did. But it was stronger than him. There were days like that, when the pull of the tide was gravitational and violent. He was weak, unable to fight this part inside himself. Yes, this part diminished as the days passed by, but it was there. The voice was hushed and awkward, like it didn't belong there or should be there in the first place, but it was present, vibrant and solid like the sun or the moon or any celestial body in between. He stepped over to the piano, surprised to find it in its resting place, unmarked, untainted, unlike his life that had been toyed with and turned upside down. There was stability and solidity about the piano. And despite all his efforts to suppress it, the prince trembled with desire. He even felt his first boner in months."

What is it like to lose a voice?

A lot of people wondered when they heard I had been gaslit for three years.

Well, it's both simple and complex, like an equation not everyone can solve. It was like death, yet it felt alive. Gaslit people go to work, have fun, work out, meet family and friends.

But to do so, they must do without a voice box. They might use an AI program to speak for them. Or they could use their abusers, who know how to talk to them well. In that case they speak but not their minds, they laugh but not at the jokes ty find funny, they attend parties and gatherings, they buy clothes, cut their hair, shave their legs, but they are still not them, even eating their favorite ice-cream bowl or lying lazily by the sea.

Sounds complex? Well...let me tell you a story about a prince who was everything everybody wanted him to be, but not himself when he agreed to lose his voice.

Part III

"The prince became a regular at cocktail parties. He spent time hunting with his brothers and father. The prince shone and reveled in his success in the roundtable meetings and in the swordfight lessons that his father required of him. Out in the public eye, and among people, the prince was a success. Everybody saw him as an overpowering, magnanimous figure. He became a person to be feared and respected. He could barely remember his older self when he walked in the middle of crowds, happy and independent, but also fragile and sensitive to the touch. He could also remember how that turned people - even his own family - hostile towards him. He said what was on his mind and expressed his opinions on everything that he liked and disliked. But now, the prince became a pinup image, the poster boy for the kingdom. He never showed weakness or emotions. It wasn't that he faked it, he lost connection with his emotional self. He felt like fragments of his personality were missing. But he didn't care. As long as he could work out this complex game of life, he was fine.

But every night, the prince lay naked and beaten in bed. The cloak was safely hung at the farthest end of his royal bedroom. His long hair clouded his vision as he cried his eyes out. The sorcerer would patiently sit at the foot of the bed, or have his head in his lap. He stroked the prince's hair as he confessed that he hated himself, that he wanted to die. The prince would take all the day's stain and wash it at the sorcerer's feet. He felt that he only allowed the sorcerer to see his weak, authentic side, and that fact both elated him and increased his misery. He was happy that there was a tiny part of his life where he could be himself. But what broke his heart was that his reality was this sad, pathetic loser. Why couldn't he be like his brothers? They were all the same everywhere, or his older sister, who was this sweet and compassionate figure in public while being a sadistic, cruel harasser in the safe confines of the castle? But the sorcerer would patiently listen to his rants, clean his face and nose from mucus.

The sorcerer would poison him with love. He would tell him to keep going. He must forget his past self. That his past self was a disease he had to unlearn. It wasn't the character of survivors, only weak gazelles get eaten. Every time the prince recounted a story from his past, or questioned his otherness, the sorcerer gently reassured him that it was true, his weirdness was an ailment, a mutation, he would have been merely an apostrophe, someone on the margins of society. Dreamers like the old prince never win. And at the end of each sad night, the sorcerer would help the prince to bed. He would cover him with the soft blanket, and gently whisper in his ear that he must forget the night. The morning was something else.

In the morning, the prince would bathe, wash his face, and wear the cloak, even while having breakfast. He only showed his face in public when he ate, but other than that, his armor was present all day long. Slowly, the prince forgot about playing the piano, which remained in the hiding place like a loyal vault of his former self. It was strange - he thought to himself sarcastically only to scold himself afterwards for making light of the matter - how there wasn't a day in the past when he wouldn't play, hum a note, or think of a melody, and try to rush behind everyone's back to compose? Now, music barely crossed his mind. He could barely focus on what lay ahead, let alone write music, or just retrieve concertos or music pieces he heard from memory. Not only that, but the prince feared who he was while playing the piano. It was as if the piano unlocked a more terrifying version of himself, one that he wasn't capable of dealing with right now. It also didn't help that every time he asked the sorcerer for permission to play, he wouldn't do it. The sorcerer was enraged that the prince would even consider going back to play. "What about your fingers?" He would say and the prince would subconsciously look at his gloves, the hanging sleeves from the cloak, and the sewn velvet fingers. As he felt them tighten and pull his flesh together every time he thought about playing, he would dismiss the idea and apologize to the sorcerer.

The thought of taking off his cloak in public terrified him. And the way he held his head high, and saw respect and fear grow in the eyes of the public as well as his family members and other members of the royal family as he entered a place in his cloak, made him unwilling to let go of how he became. Although, there were times when he caught himself thinking like the sorcerer, or forgetting how his own voice sounded like in his head.

The sorcerer, on the other hand, became a royal court favorite. He began letting go of his anonymity as he accompanied the prince to all meetings and gatherings. The whole family loved him, and they were secretly grateful to him for handling the rather difficult prince. It didn't matter that the prince was still miserable, as long as they didn't see it, they were fine with that. And after some time, they forgot that the prince was in pain. To them he walked and talked. He was alright. And sometimes they would even look at him as he made a major decision, or participated in hunting trips with cousins or other members of the royal family and would think he was actually better.

All eyes were on the sorcerer. He was a genius, a miracle healer. How did he turn this wild child into someone socially acceptable, docile, and sane? How did he breathe maturity into this difficult son? And the sorcerer would bask in the glory of praise and admiration from all those around the prince. Even the arrogant kind grabbed his arm one day, grateful for his presence in his son's life. That's when the sorcerer realized a scary truth: the prince was truly loved by his family. They just wanted him to blend in. To be normal. To do what everyone else did. And the sorcerer used this for his gain.

What is it like to lose a voice?

A lot of people wondered when they heard I had been gaslit for three years.

Well, it's both simple and complex, like an equation not everyone can solve. It was like death, yet it felt alive. Gaslit people go to work, have fun, work out, meet family and friends.

But to do so, they must do without a voice box. They might use an AI program to speak for them. Or they could use their abusers, who know how to talk to them well. In that case they speak but not their minds, they laugh but not at the jokes ty find funny, they attend parties and gatherings, they buy clothes, cut their hair, shave their legs, but they are still not them, even eating their favorite ice-cream bowl or lying lazily by the sea.

Sounds complex? Well...let me tell you a story about a prince who was everything everybody wanted him to be, but not himself when he agreed to lose his voice.

Part II

"The prince mounted his horse and ran. He roamed the kingdom. But the prince was spoiled, not meant for harsh living, so he was fooled and tricked by many. He gave his heart to men and women who wanted his beauty, royal blood, or art. His dimes barely covered his daily meals because he played the piano in taverns and carnivals. The prince, unlike his brothers, was sheltered. Because he ventured into the world without prior experience, the world treated him harshly. His fragile soul couldn't take it. He fell ill, and nobody cared for him. In the middle of feverish dreams, and imaginary nocturnes, the prince saw the evil sorcerer for who he truly was, a bear trap, a chain clamped around the prince's throat, a metal grinder cutting off his fingertips. The prince screamed but what came out of his mouth were long tendrils of fungus and moss.

The prince's body healed itself, but instead of using the illness as an opportunity to grow and strengthen himself, the prince closed in on himself further. As a result, living among people was hard because a shell surrounded his sharp edges and constricted his movements and thoughts. He rode his horse, slumped over him, and let him drag him, half conscious, half lethargic to the piano hiding place. It was there, clean and polished. The prince sat with difficulty and played his last symphony; a thousand cries of birds shot at in the Hebrides. He raised teary eyes to Heaven, waiting for some higher power to intervene, and make him strong again. But the sorcerer intervened. He was the figure appearing from the gloomy depths of the forest.

The prince stood up, walked to him, bent down and allowed the evil sorcerer to hold him tight until he was breathless. He raised a shaky hand and signed the contract. The sorcerer grazed his thumb with the tip of his heart-plucker ring. He used the blood of the prince to seal the contract. The prince's blood turned into wax when it reached paper. The paper wrapped around itself and vanished inside the sorcerer's tunic. The sorcerer then held the cloak and cocooned the prince inside it. At first the prince was terrified, all those layers and layers of black, how could he breathe, speak, or eat? But the cloak fit perfectly, it was as if it draped itself around his body, skin over skin, the velvet was soft and nurturing, like a mother's embrace, the cloth face shield wrapped itself around his cheeks, he was muzzled but still could speak, his voice came out strange, deep and mumbling. The prince thought it gave him an air of mystery, and when the sewn fingers tightened and his fingers lost all their mobility, the prince took one last farewell look at the piano, turned his back on it, and walked with the sorcerer back to the kingdom.

The prince was surprised to find a welcoming reception. Everybody was happy to see him cloaked like a phantom figure. He wondered if they could see below the face shield, the hood that threw shades on his face, and the restricted movement of his fingers, but the sorcerer whispered into his ears that it all made him powerful, feared and mysterious. None of them had loved the prince translucent as a clear pond, nobody wanted to see his pores or count his freckles. He could hide inside the fabric and give off an air of mystery and fear. He could invoke different feelings in the hearts of friends and foes alike. Most importantly, he won't have to play the piano. I wouldn't be able to if I tried, the prince thought sarcastically. But the sorcerer's voice rose deep from within him, warning him against sarcasm, against disobeying his face, disgracing the cloak he is wearing. This time, the shame will usurp him, there will be nothing left. Had he forgotten his prior rebellions? Had he not stormed wildly into the unknown, he would have saved himself countless nights of shame and pain. Had he forgotten the terror of throwing his heart at the mercy of strangers? Or spending the nights sick and lonely in a place with unkind people all around, with nothing to protect him or care for him but himself? And he could never protect himself, he was weak, pathetic and meek. He was not ready for this world yet.

The prince suppressed his wandering thoughts, in fear of angering the sorcerer, after all he was the only one who showed genuine care and kindness towards him. He leaned into the cloak, and the amazing thing was, that the cloak leaned into him as well. It felt like they were intertwined as one, both skins weaved into a single mass of existence. As he eased into wearing the cloak every single day, he found that he couldn't live without it, even if it made his vision narrower, his tongue heavier with the burden of speaking from behind the cloth face shield. He found his rigid fingers surprisingly capable of straightening him up as he walked into a courtroom, or a council meeting. He tapped with ease on the round table and proved a point simply by standing and saying nothing, only watching the meetings with solemn eyes that he found made a lot of people uneasy. If something was too complex for him to discuss, the sorcerer would magically manifest and intervene, and he could eloquently describe everything that the prince wanted to say, but in a manner that didn't make it sound bizarre or antagonistic.

The prince and the cloak became one, and the prince found himself drawing further and further inside himself. The prince became two princes, one who was out there attending board meetings, participating in official ceremonies, and reinforcing presence in managing estates across the kingdoms. And the prince in the shadow of a man, whose fingers curl inward from dreams of electric sheep and Mesopotamia-candies. That naked prince, as he stood cloaked and safe facing a raging bull of a stormy sea, was as far away as the sound of the piano in his thorax. Good, he said as he rubbed the sole of his shoes at a rock, let's keep it that way."

Or does the art fear you?

Are you playing the part

or do darts play you

Flamethrowers aside

there's a hole in your resume

Step back

Drink until your pee becomes sappy

corn syrup for the people in the sewers

Close your eyes and go

What is it like to lose a voice?

A lot of people wondered when they heard I had been gaslit for three years.

Well, it's both simple and complex, like an equation not everyone can solve. It was like death, yet it felt alive. Gaslit people go to work, have fun, work out, meet family and friends.

But to do so, they must do without a voice box. They might use an AI program to speak for them. Or they could use their abusers, who know how to talk to them well. In that case they speak but not their minds, they laugh but not at the jokes ty find funny, they attend parties and gatherings, they buy clothes, cut their hair, shave their legs, but they are still not them, even eating their favorite ice-cream bowl or lying lazily by the sea.

Sounds complex? Well...let me tell you a story about a prince who was everything everybody wanted him to be, but not himself when he agreed to lose his voice.

"Once upon a time, there was a prince. He was the son of a very strong family, but they were all athletic and strong. They participated in hunting expeditions and played sports, they went out to parties and immersed themselves in the fierce comradery of bros against hoes; well if you can call dainty princesses with tiny waists and magnanimous bosoms hoes then yes...they formed an alliance against that.

But the prince was not like that. He hated being a bro. For all that mattered, he wasn't against hoes or anything. All the prince wanted was to play the piano deep inside the forest where he could not be found. He played and played until his fingers bled, until it was neither dawn nor sunset. But nobody appreciated this. The king was furious at the prince. There were loyalties to make, land to conquer, swordfights to excel at, and women to bury his head within their warm lace.

So an evil sorcerer was asked to approach the prince, and trick him into accepting a binding contract. If he signed, he would be obligated to follow the kingdom's rules. The prince, although fragile, was a rebel. He rejected all attempts to mold him. He wouldn't be like his brothers. He hated their lives. He was not interested in the monarchy. To the world he made a fool of himself, but to himself music meant something. It is possible that if he played long enough, a symphony, an awakening, thunder might strike him dead, or flowers would bloom throughout the night, from among these ferns and coniferous growths.

But the sorcerer knew his way with the prince. He waited and waited, patiently weaving a cloak of submission. He knew the prince was not interested in wearing crowns or jewelry. He didn't want to be identified with materialistic things. He was wild as the cattle stampede that stormed across the kingdom's lands. But wild ones don't stay wild forever. There are obligations, and those responsibilities come in the form of the aftermath of a first heartbreak.

And the first heartbreak came from the beautiful and arrogant belle that the prince fell for. He never thought she would reject him. Yes, the prince was fluid. His first kiss was with a boy, but that was in the past. He never thought of who he loved, and whether they were like him or different from who he was. He followed his heart and wherever it took him, he landed. So when he met the arrogant belle at the pan flute lesson, he was charmed by her skills. She played the flute until he felt his soul fly. When he took her to the forest to show her his music skills, she was impressed. That day, he played the piano like nobody else. He wasn't just creating music, he was soaring, the veins in his forehead popping, his eyes distant, focused and scary. He wooed her, not with his charm, for he knew that no matter how charming he was, there were more charming people out there. People like his brothers. But that secret talent, those fingers playing the piano, there weren't too many out there. So the incredibly attractive and arrogant pan flute genius was smitten, as he had hoped. He lost his virginity to her, on the damp piano from early morning dew. That day he returned home wearing Air Nike, pumped and charged like nobody else. But the evil sorcerer watched, his face lurking in the shadows. He knew like all the wise that first love doesn't last. Never lasts.

And last it did not. The king held the annual ball, and the prince attended, confusing everyone in the grand palace. But it was different this time. He will wear a mask and search the crowds for his pan flute belle. He will bow to her and dance with her. Then they will stun the crowd as they play a version of "He's a pirate", her on the pan flute, him on the piano. They will make their own concerto, a stunning prelude in D minor, and the world will cheer him on. He need not be his brothers or father, just himself, and that will suit him fine.

But the moment he wore the peacock mask and entered the ball, there she was, his belle, in the arms of his middle brother, wearing a hawk mask. He bent her over like a marshmallow, her neck so long that he could feel her veins trembling. The prince stood. Tears clouded his vision beyond the mask. Then he stormed, rode his horse and ventured deep into the forest. In his secret place, the piano was covered with mold and mildew, vines and thorns grew all around it. Enraged, the prince sat at the piano, raised his hands and slammed them against the keys. Music came out of his body like a purge. He shook and heaved; his chest pained with gurgling tears. He didn't just play, he smashed his fingers against the keys until they bled, again and again. His music ruptured something in the heart of the forest, something evil, not beauty or Gothic, but dark like the pit where his father threw enemies to hungry boars and deformed beasts. So dark and deep that nobody heard the fallen's screams. The prince remembered these stories and played harder. He hated them. He hated violence, but there he was, wishing he was there with the beasts, eating someone out. Taking their hearts with his claws and fangs.

The evil sorcerer approached. He wore a peacock costume, but different from what the prince wore. He came with a cloak, perfectly woven to knit all the prince's fingers together, so he wouldn't play. He showed him the contract, held the prince's head in his lap. Told him it was his fault. He was weak. He was pathetic. He gave too much to this piano, and nothing came out of his music but misery. He showed him the kingdom's people in a crystal ball. They were all tired and depressed. None of them cared about his music. None of them wanted to listen. And the children cried every time they passed by his hiding place as they played. Nobody cared. Why keep playing music when all it did was make the world miserable? The prince cried further, his hopes crushed, his soul grey at the edges. He asked the kind evil sorcerer in the peacock mask what to do. The sorcerer showed him the cloak and instructed the prince to sign a contract not to upset his father, who loved him more than anyone in the world. And as a term of this contract, he had to stop playing music. And to make sure he wouldn't revert back and cause himself - and the ones he loved - pain, they would make him wear this cloak.

The prince dried his eyes and held the cloak in his hands. Not bad. It was royal blue, with gold threads at the hem. It would touch the ground behind him, he could hide inside it whenever he felt scared or troubled by the world. In addition, it had a large hood that almost buried his face. It also had sleeves that wrapped themselves around his arms the moment he donned the cloak, the fingers knitted together so he couldn't move them freely. The hood also had a cloth face shield that silenced him whenever he covered his head with it. The prince got scared, threw the cloak away. His fingers gave life to his dark world. And even if he didn't talk much, his music usually communicated what he wanted to say. But the sorcerer was kind. He patted his shoulder and told him to travel to the edge of the earth, try his luck and come back. If all worked out, the king would forget he had a son. However, if it didn't, the prince could always count on the evil sorcerer to guide him."

Stay tuned for part III.

Wild nights! Wild Nights!

You can always tell if you are a reformed wild child. If you were once "wild", even the word sounds beautiful and smells like mildew in a forest after a storm. Like the damp belly of a wolf standing on a hill in that particular forest after the storm passes.

I was once wild, but now I have escaped the wildness of the world and kept it within, ready for sometime when I've become more mature and adept at my craft to let out all the madness and the fear and create art inspired by it.

If you have ever been wild, you are familiar with the feeling. The thrill of anti-conformity. The enjoyment of looks of disdain or disapproval from the docile, more composed majority. You know how fear can creep into your bones as you step into the wild, the bar, the party in strangers' homes, or friendships that you make without prior consideration or a background check. You understand the temptation of the glass. Can you stomach one more? You know what it feels like to be drunk in a stupor. I was once so drunk that I remembered being stuck in a VR room that rolled and swung as you tried to fly a virtual plane. I was upside down in the tight space, I was wearing a skirt that flew off above my head, and my poor knickers -hehehe, how British am I- were exposed to the asshole employees at the controls outside the VR room. That day when I got home totally wasted, I remembered getting stuck in that room with my legs above my head, and my body confined to the tightest space possible.

Being wild was scary, but it had its perks. You meet some of the coolest people when you're wild. You are deranged, poetic, angry, and unmatched in darkness. You text exes after a night of shots and screwdrivers. You wake up feeling ashamed and regretful, but you remember the wonderful poetry you texted your ex and sigh, "Would that sound intriguing in a book?" The answer most of the time will be: Yes!

In the years where wildness havocs your credit card, your relationship with your family, your mental health, and your health, you can easily hate the memory. Walking through lines of people you don't know. The dangerous men you meet along the way. Nicotine clogs your lungs. The burning sensation of the hookah filling your chest, the warmth followed by the insane tingling, the burning sensation and how you crave more despite feeling more lightheaded as the night pulls you in deeper. The lust that somehow drives your decisions and clouds your judgment, the men -especially the men- that ooze danger, a menacing field of power and destruction, and the sad, self-destructive women, who kiss you and cry even as you try to disentangle your sense of self from their grasp.

It's easy to dismiss all of that after one wild rampage. When you're sober and stable, your feet on solid ground, the world is your suitcase of opportunities. You have tasted the first bite of things that seemed foreign to you in the past: stability, security, calmness, sleep, safety, coziness, tranquility. Wildness would then seem like a distant angry sea. And the lure of the shore would be too lulling and pacifying to resist. And all the horrible things would lash at you in the middle of the night. The night when you almost got jumped by a group of assholes, if not for your high-alert sense of danger, that well-functioning fight or flight mode that you haven't shut off at the slightest hint of a scary situation. That night when you got thrown into a chaotic fling with a guy whom you learned later was a serial rapist using a potent date-rape drug, and how each time he tried to lure you into a night out alone with him, you always sought the company of others. How you had that near-brush with something that could have turned your world upside down, left you scarred beyond repair, or the damage would have taken more than paint and door fixation to put you back together.

So when you're remembering those thunderous days of wildness, you can easily kick them away into the dark recesses of your brain. But you can also kick the good times. The one where you met this really sensitive, cute guy at the writing workshop and took him on wild, late night dates. And then you met this alcoholic poet who chanted "I'm a prophet" in that crowded, vintage Alexandrian bar. You disliked him immediately only to cross paths with him years later at training for a crushing customer service daytime job. Years later, you're on a beautiful beach resort getaway, scrolling through Facebook to learn that he'd passed away, 35 years old.

How can you forget the day you tasted red wine for the first time? You sang out loud despite being uncomfortable about singing in front of strangers? Not that you have an outstanding set of pipes, but people never left you alone. "Sing" they'd say, as if poetry wasn't enough, the writing wasn't enough, the comedy wasn't enough, the artistry wasn't enough. They just had to milk other talent out of you and you lacked it, my child. You really did.

So now, in the comfort of your new life, when the years of being wild are so far behind that you can barely remember them through blurry images, and distant, muffled sounds, allow yourself to remember them. Allow yourself to miss those days when you could venture into the unknown, ask that asshole you were dating to walk with you to the beach at night, the waves angry, and the predator vibes coming off him so intense that you can barely shelter your bones. Remember and let go of all the days when you evaded someone leaving a mark on you. They grind at you with their teeth like that asshole who bit you when you were a teen, with your bare arm exposed through the window of a tram -a train on electricity- and how that made you too scared to ride public transportation and stay near an open window. Close your eyes and miss those wild days of spiraling out of control, letting go and never checking for the ground under your feet.

is me

I'm watching

as Christine

takes her hesitant first steps

on the piano

Phantom of the Opera

can't see

the blindfold too tight

the jaw so tense

the ideas floating over their head

Phantom of the Opera

is a rogue

no monster

but an idol in Vogue

And I'm no nymph

just an afterthought

roaming the world

in hipster clothing

and mounts of powder

hiding scars of misery

Phantom of the Opera

asks questions first

Phantom of the Opera

docks her boat

through the underworld

Christine is blindfolded

and whispering through the murky stream

in the forest

But Phantom of the Opera is you

watching me

too

I cannot be Christine

My hair's too short

my eyes are too puffy

but you can be Christine

and if the boat trips and falls

into the waters

I can save you

or you save me

from the currents of the Black Sea

Demons insinuate the row we use to navigate

waters

currents and currants

in your mouth

Watch me take off the mask

and scream the darkness into your throat

Maybe a bitter seed will plant a pottery clam

a secret so mossy and glossy

with ingrown mushroom shrubs

Back in

resting place

folded knee

shoulder bite

someplace to rest my head

Who let the beasts out?

Back in

No longer a folder

of names to dissipate

Who let my childhood back

into my sole existence

Who let the pain drip

through the cannula?

Who let the past seep

through the cavernous present?

Every time a beast escapes

I lose a point in Tantric years

The sonnet

doesn't want to end

The cello in his mouth

the corner of a grin

Past tense

past, present, and what lies between

The trailer for "Dune: Part Two" took the world by storm. And for a logical reason. The film features four of the biggest names in Hollywood today, actors known as "young Hollywood," the next generation not enamored with Marvel movies and popularity. Yes, they are A-listers of the top tier, and their lives and paparazzi shots reflect that. However, they're also devoted and dedicated, trying to carve their names beyond being brand ambassadors for luxury perfumes and underwear. They lead big-budget movies, but they also travel to Europe to experiment with a European creative name "Zendaya and Timothee Chalamet", go down in the dirt to do an indie that costs nothing "Florence Pugh", or look into literature and try to be the hero in a modern-day epic that resembles all the Greek mythological adaptations that took the 80s/90s movie screens by storm "Austin Butler".

However, none of this mattered to the hungry Internet onlookers, because the most talked about aspect of the trailer was: Was Austin Butler seriously going bald?

The initial reactions ranged from sarcastic and dismissive to hopelessly devoted and infatuated by the superstar's image. Austin's fans still hold on to his beauty and image, like a modern-day Jesus, a Visconti-type Roman god-like figure, someone to revere and worship, treated with scary and research-worthy delicacy, like a China doll they are afraid to hold and break. Some of the more mature audiences were curious, and some were appreciative. Was Austin Butler that ballsy? Was he more interested in the aesthetic of losing that main thing that defines him; his beauty? Is it possible to spiral down the "nose" rabbit hole that former beauties have fallen into; Nicole Kidman, and Charlize Theron to name just a few? Or was he seriously solidifying his steps by molding into the actor that he has been patiently putting on the armor, learning the makeup artistry, studying the body, experimenting with the props (probably experimenting with it in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari-like dungeon where he stores his serious creative side - like many other artists before him), assembling, gathering, and finally emerging with the results to a world that is watching with both fascination and scrutiny?

It's not that significant. Austin is slowly shedding the blindfold of being too much of a heartthrob on TV. Roles like "Shannara" and "Carrie Diaries" might earn him a swarming following of worshippers, but not a place in the collective history of art and storytelling. He found himself faced with the daunting challenge of balancing his celebrity image with remaining true to his inherent artistic abilities, which seems to be the main driving force behind his career choices, as he finally reached the place that he had -deservedly- worked so hard for.

So what happens in the creation of a movie character's looks?

After my recent conversations with multiple hair and makeup artists, costume designers, and DPs, I saw the creative process through a different lens. A character on paper differs from what the actor embodies. And a character like Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen is a different breed of monster. Looking at the BDSM-inspired costume that Jodorowsky initially envisioned for Feyd, it was clear how sexualized and sadistic he is. It would be interesting to see what shadows of that interpretation remains and what is omitted in the new adaptation.

Described initially in Frank Herbert's novel as a dark-haired youth of about sixteen years, round of face and with sullen eyes. This couldn't be further from what Austin Butler showed in the Dune trailer.

In another instance, At the Baron’s elbow walked Feyd-Rautha. His dark hair was dressed in close ringlets that seemed incongruously gay above sullen eyes. He wore a tight-fitting black tunic and snug trousers with a suggestion of bell at the bottom. Soft-soled slippers covered his small feet.

Even the Baron lustfully - or in an admiring, borderline creepy manner- reminisces on the future he has for Feyd:

Beloved Feyd-Rautha, Benign Feyd-Rautha, the compassionate one who saves them from a beast. Feyd-Rautha, a man to follow and die for. The boy will know by that time how to oppress with impunity. I’m sure he’s the one we need. He’ll learn. And such a lovely body. Really a lovely boy.

On the other hand, the Baron in the book is as precisely as we see him in the first "Dune", a fat blubber of a character with emphasis on his gross body in passages like this one:

The Baron shifted his gross body in the suspensors, focused his attention on an ebaline statue of a leaping boy in a niche across the room. Sleep faded from him. He straightened the padded suspensor beneath the fat folds of his neck, stared across the single glowglobe of his bedchamber to the doorway where Captain Nefud stood blocked by the pentashield.

It must have been a joint decision between Austin and Denis Villeneuve to make Austin's Feyd like an alien hybrid, a pale, slimy Harkonnen lacking what defines Austin the most; his beauty and his physical appearance. They sat together and decided that to make this character, there must be something beyond what meets the eye. I understand that there are a thousand interpretations of how a villain should look like. There are far more lethal and handsome devils in film and TV. But this particular creative choice was a carefully crafted milestone in the plan that Austin the artist -not the celebrity, nor the performer- had been carefully weaving. He is trying to carve a path that carefully treads the line between an attractive person who has been known for his looks almost all his life. During his rise to superstardom, he successfully portrayed one of the most beautiful men on earth, Elvis Presley. So to work around that, without losing the fanbase that pushed him forward, Austin's steps should be careful, tactful, and calculated. This is in a way that sees art uncompromised for the sake of aesthetics, without also completely disregarding his oozing classic Hollywood charm.

By looking back at some of the more talented leading men known for their stunning physicality, one could track stars like Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Leo, of course, is the apex of the Hollywood hierarchy of leading men. He has evolved from doing a film like "The Man in the Iron Mask" that wouldn't have made a dollar at the box office if not for his rabid female fanbase. He has also ignored these looks in movies like "J. Edgar" or "The Revenant". Leo became a movie star who is willing to deconstruct that image for the sake of roles as ridiculous and hilarious at the same time as "The Wolf of Wall Street" or most recently from what we saw in the trailer for "Killers of the Flower Moon" where his character is not only an average joe -as far as Leo DiCaprio could be- but also dim-witted, manipulated by the more cunning men, so it's not like he was a movie star character, carefully plotting and tactfully planting leads or clues. Leo in a very daring move is going deep down the hole that he avoided in roles like "Shutter Island" or "Inception" where characters might not be what viewers would consider hot or sexy, but they are the kind of men that lead investigations or drive the narrative forward. These are all preliminary assumptions just like the ones that I'm making about Austin Butler's Feyd. However, that trailer shows DiCaprio weaving in a character, unlike others he portrayed before. He is brave at such an age -he's almost 50- to reinvent himself and look for ways that defy viewers' expectations.

It's always tricky with other actors of the previous generation, but Brad Pitt (while lacking the acting credibility and lucrative career of DiCaprio) has taken some bold moves with his career as well. Pitt will be the handsome leading man even if he plays the average guy. He's a very hot lawyer in "Sleepers", he's the ultimate morally ambiguous dreamboat in "Legends of the Fall", he's a very sexy detective in "Seven", he's a homoerotic dream of a gothic beauty in "Interview with the Vampire" but he's also an insane, dirty, grimy, funny guy in "Snatch" with an insane Irish accent and some marvelous work of his crazy eyes. Brad Pitt created another male icon in "Fight Club" playing the sexual yet psychopathic Tyler Durden and gave the 00s a true anti-hero unlike anybody else. He twisted his comedic side in more than one instance, unafraid to be funny like in "Burn After Reading", "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", or even the unbelievable tale of "12 Monkeys".

Tom Cruise is a different kind of leading man. For starters, Cruise wasn't an artsy actor, but more of a box-office-slamming, unified celebrity image. As Cruise, he will look cool on screen, get the girl, save the day, and throw a couple of American jokes to solidify his American charm worldwide and at the box office. Experimentation and artistry beyond the "Cruise" image could be classified in a very tricky -but also interesting- category: deconstructing the alpha American male image. In "Magnolia" he plays a parody of toxic masculinity and male vulnerability combined, ranging from the extreme to the extreme. In "Eyes Wide Shot" he is the sidekick to Nicole Kidman, the main player of the film, the real protagonist with her moral and sexual dilemma. He is the American husband and father, crushed and declassified while watching helplessly as his stoned wife fantasizes about sleeping with another man.

So that being said, Austin Butler has a long road to explore, and a series of mountains to climb. Which way will he go, that is the question. And personally as a movie buff and a critic, I am here to revel in the marvel of anticipating a movie star, in the times of this dying breed of filmmaking.