I am afraid of girls who fall in love and let it turn to hatred. They  ruminate, dissect, analyze, stalk, deflect, and eventually become bitter. Their chests cave in and their lips get sour. Their posture fails them, and they tell the same stories about men, til they look old and sour. I think of all the heartache that turns women into bitter monsters, medusas, sea creatures. I imagine it collects in the earth like a swamp, waiting to be processed. I think about my Mothers unexpressed need for spontaneity, swallowed, that bled into me like a ticking time bomb. Her appetite for adventure, starved.   I am afraid of shutting my heart down, or of sedimenting into stone. I would prefer to let love destroy me, or animate me. I would prefer to go mad than turn catatonic. 

If we didn't have phones, and I hadnt heard from him, I could have found him using my feelings. I could have tracked him down, because he was closer to me than I asked for, beating out of me like an unwarranted sun. This psychic hunt has no resting place, and it both destroyed and animated me. Drove me around the world. I stopped remembering who or what I was moving for, instructed by some invisible force. Propelled forward like a marionette with astral strings. It was no longer about my elf-lover, or even me. I was trying to heal the original heartache. Following my omnipresent, absentee boss. 

I follow the Magdalene Ley Line to Rome, it's tattered ruins a placeholder for my grief, the vatican, it's thief. 

Italy is burnt orange and brilliant pinks, it's crumbling terrain boasting of golden ages, coral wallpaper peeling off in the citrus infused heat. Ruins of temples and holy spaces scatter the city, like crumbled yellow bone, prodding out like golden teeth. Amidst them, blush watercolor restaurants and bars light up, like a magic carnival, appearing to be resurrected from dust. 

Rome feels like sex, and love, and violence.  Sacrament and sacrifice. I think of demigods, gladiators and goddesses, draped, their generous bosoms cleaving way to dishonest empires. Oracles, nymphs, sprites, and emperors.  I imagine time above me, like a vortex, and all moments occurring at once. I envision braids of light years, weaving together, curving around the dripping grottos and fountains. 

Rome rings with amber light. I am achey. The day time is almost uninhabitable, and my clothes cling to my body. I spend the whole day sparkling, pulsing out big beads of sweat. Glittering, burnt pink and iridescent. I glow, like a lantern. As though I have swallowed the sun. There is a dense wildness that trembles up, through the earth, entering my body in a pillar. It is erotic, but not quite pleasant, nor satiated. I am high from the heat, and the chiseled statues appear to peer down at me. My impulses pull me through the coves and coliseums. If everything wasn't so beautiful, I would surrender to my lethargy. If I didn't honor primitive reflexes, I would be burnt out. 

I pass vibrant markets selling opalescent milks and pungent spices, sweet liqueurs and neon fans. I weave past knobbled caverns, past fountains that spray jade waters into shimmering basins. There are altars carved into stone walkways, saints and angels nestled into eroding walls.  I imagine Vestal Virgins, with flowing botticelli locks, who kept candles burning for years on end. Priestesses, who used their bodies to marry the land to the men, and pull the war out of them with the thrusts of their hips. Italian men are filthy, and I like it. It makes French men look like women. I don't touch any of them, but I can feel their eyes burning holes through my summer dresses. I imagine being grabbed and stolen away. 

In the basque of the new moon, we follow cascading vines and rotting mansions. Tilted up the cobblestoned streets, til dusk hits, and the sky turns amethyst. The city still rings with an amber glow, even at night. The streets hum with crickets choruses, and the buildings seem to heave a sigh of relief for the setting sun. There is a busker, pranging Oasis, outside the keyhole to St.Peter's Cathedral. I envision sending my spirit under it's floor, and retrieving the keys to my soul. 

Vatican city is shaped as a replica of a heart, with perfect anatomy. The steps around the cathedrals, built like ventricles, the passageways, valves. The vast gardens, libraries and galleries, its cardiovascular chambers. It beats with stolen power, like a haunting drum. Not heard, only felt. I follow the Ley Line, like it is a vein, and I am blood. I trace cathedral floors with salt,  urgently oblidging a silent rhythm. Adhering to invisible instructions.  I am plucking out toxins from the earth, extracting monstrosity from the belly of the feminine. I want to untangle this meridian, clear it, like water.  I pray for help, and outline the outskirts of the Vatican. 

I wear a lightning corset and metallic skirt, and parade my fury through it's halls. Each gallery, dotted with sickly looking cupids, and cold statues of roman gods and mean marble men.  My anger rises up, volcanic. My grief, opening up my throat like a flower. These atrocious thieves hoard miles of stolen artifacts.  A mafia of collectors , skeletor, cloaked, doing strange rituals with strange instruments.  I wonder if there are children under the ground. 

I walk, despite my pain, sprinkling salt. I charge forward until I am limping. My feet and legs dusted in sea salt, my braided hair, sticky, like woven honey. I am stealing everything back and giving it to God. And to Ireland. I read poetry to the premises, wash my feet in a fountain. 

We find sanctuary in a restaurant, it's shiny wine bottles winking in the twilight, tea lights strung precariously into vines overhead. There are emerald jars of olive oil and rich cheeses, fat, like miniature moons. Marionette puppets hang off the stone walls, lined with the pearly busts of lost emperors. The food is rich, almost hallucinogenic. We sip champagne cocktails, and I don’t speak about why I am doing what I am doing. I untangle spaghetti, melting into a table, my heart, pranging.